© AP Photo/Khalil Hamra/TASS

Top stories from the Russian press on Monday, July 25th, prepared by TASS

Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Istanbul deal may help in gas deliveries to Europe

Moscow hopes for the UN’s help in lifting the sanctions that prevented the export of Russian grain, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Sunday. Several foreign economists also thought that following the Istanbul agreement on Ukrainian grain exports the anti-Russian sanctions introduced by the West would be lifted. According to experts polled by the newspaper, the UN-mediated arrangement of interaction with Ukraine created in Turkey follows a course of relaxing the restrictions and may be used to resolve other issues, related, for example, with Russian gas supplies.

The talks in Istanbul were successful for Moscow since the very fact of reaching a deal there disproves the assertion of Russia’s complete isolation, political scientist Andrey Suzdaltsev says. "This is also a major success for Turkey which held the Westphalia format negotiations - separately with Ukraine and with Russia," he noted.

That said, the expert thinks that Russia would have wanted to see more progress at these talks. "We wanted a package agreement but as a result got a decorative agreement with the UN on removing the sanctions against our grain and fertilizers. Essentially, this is a request for the US and the West through the UN. We still don’t know whether they lifted the sanctions on insurance and infrastructure companies involved in the export of our grain," he explained.

According to the expert, the Istanbul agreement is on the track towards the gradual lifting of the sanctions. "The intensity of the restrictions is decreasing, as gold was included in the EU’s seventh package but gas wasn’t. Opponents realize more clearly that it is impossible to completely exclude Russia from the global economy. The experience of working in the joint Istanbul group with the participation of Ukraine and the UN even if the special military operation continues may be useful in resolving other issues. For example, it can be expected that the same format will be used to discuss the subject of transit of our gas through the Ukrainian gas transport system."

Izvestia: Experts predict weaker ruble

Russia’s national currency will weaken to 70.1 rubles per dollar, according to the analysts of major banks polled by Izvestia. The lowered rate will be facilitated by the purchases of currencies from friendly countries planned by the Finance Ministry, the stabilization of the situation with imports and weakened global demand for raw materials. The analysts did not rule out that the ruble will be affected by authorities’ verbal interventions - a dollar worth 70-80 rubles is profitable for the budget. That said, the Central Bank calculated that Russians have about $85 bln in cash and vowed that this money would circulate domestically.

Chief analyst at PSB Denis Popov has the highest forecast. According to him, the ruble's rate may go down to 77 per dollar. This will be impacted by lowered export income due to recovered imports as well as the introduction of a new budget rule where the Finance Ministry will purchase friendly foreign currency for its reserves which would affect the dollar rate.

Home Credit bank analyst Stanislav Duzhinsky concurs, saying that the lowered ruble rate will be facilitated by an increase in exchanges with friendly currencies, above all, with China’s yuan. In the near future, the ruble will remain strong but will go down to 65-75 per dollar by the end of the year, the expert thinks.

According to Sovcombank Chief Analyst Mikhail Vasilyev, the ruble’s lowered rate will be affected by five factors: heightened demand for foreign currency due to recovered imports, the new budget rule with purchases of friendly currencies, lowered prices for oil and gas over the global recession, decreased volumes of Russian exports over the sanctions and the verbal interventions by the authorities. According to him, all these factors will weaken the ruble to 65 per US dollar.

Kommersant: Gazprom questions Canadian maintenance license for Nord Stream turbine

According to the newspaper, on July 24, Siemens Energy transferred Canada’s export license to Gazprom which makes it possible to repair and transport the much-awaited gas turbine for Nord Stream. Now, in order for Siemens to bring the turbines to Russia, Gazprom has to alter the mechanism of its delivery from Montreal, Due to delays with the paperwork, the turbine has already missed the July 23 ferry from Germany to Helsinki. If the parties exchange documents successfully, the device may be transported in a few days. However, Kommersant’s sources doubt that the turbine’s delivery will increase the volumes over Nord Stream since several other units require maintenance.

Theoretically, they can be sent for repairs at any time, according to the sources, but Gazprom has not yet given the okay to do so. The sources say that the maintenance of one turbine takes about three months.

That said, Berlin does not believe that the absence of the turbine lowered the supplies over Nord Stream, and went on to accuse Moscow of politically weaponizing gas deliveries. In its turn, Gazprom stated that significant potential risks existed if all established procedures related to the return of the turbine were not observed. The company stressed that "the current terms of the contract do not provide for additional obligations of the Russian side to obtain this engine," without explaining what these obligations were.

Izvestia: Transnistrian top diplomat weighs in on region, relations with Moldova

The possibility of Moldova exiting the 1992 agreement which formed the foundation for a peace deal to end the armed conflict on the Dniester is quite real nowadays, Transnistrian Foreign Minister Vitaly Ignatiev said in an interview with Izvestia. The top diplomat explained why Transnistria views Moldova practically as another Romania and its officially neutral status as fiction in addition to weighing in on whether local authorities will make any moves towards joining Russia.

"The unification of Moldova with Romania or an attempt to become an EU member is the sovereign decision of the neighboring country. Let Moldova’s population and leadership decide for themselves how they want to live. That’s their choice. And we respect the choice of the Moldovan people but it is also necessary to respect the choice of Transnistrian people. The Moldovan leadership has no moral or political and legal rights to foist their identity and their choice on Transnistria. We have the opposite identity and a different course of geopolitical development and a different destiny," the top diplomat said.

"One should probably ask the Transnistrians what they would want ideally. I can say that the ideal future for Transnistria is when peace is securely ensured, the rights and freedoms of our multinational population are guaranteed and any obstacles to the republic’s development are removed. Time will tell in what format this will be guaranteed," the envoy concluded.

Vedomosti: Russian airlines to lose 19 mln passengers over shutdown of southern airports

The closure of 11 airports in southern Russia will see airlines forfeiting 19.1 mln passengers in 2022, according to the Ministry of Transport’s assessment made available to Vedomosti.

Since the onset of Russia’s special operation in Ukraine in February, the Federal Air Transport Agency restricted flights to 11 airports in Russia’s south for security reasons. The airports of Anapa, Belgorod, Bryansk, Voronezh, Gelendzhik, Krasnodar, Kursk, Lipetsk, Rostov-on-Don, Simferopol and Elista were shut down. The closure has been extended several times, currently it is in effect until July 30. As a result, transportation to Black Sea resorts has been complicated since only Sochi’s airport in Adler is accessible.

Fyodor Borisov, an expert with the Higher School of Economics, concurs with the ministry’s assessment saying that it is a "difficult task" to make up for a fifth of a total passenger flow. Head editor of the Avia.ru portal Roman Gusarov added that air carriers are suffering serious losses due to the closed airports. "The airlines are trying to compensate for their losses with clearance sales and other attractive routes," Borisov explains. Gusarov says that the passengers won’t disappear - some of them will choose other destinations while others will get to Russia’s southern localities using land transportation. According to him, ensuring demand for open routes is the most important issue for the air industry nowadays.