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Top stories from the Russian press on Friday, October 21st, prepared by TASS
Vedomosti: Truss resigns to become Britain’s shortest-serving PM
On Thursday, UK Prime Minister Liz Truss announced her decision to resign. She is planning to quit by the end of next week. Truss admitted that she could not deliver the mandate on which she was elected by the Conservatives. She held her post for just six weeks, becoming Britain’s shortest-serving premier. Back on Tuesday, Truss said she was not going to step down, despite calls for her to do so from members of the ruling Conservative party. According to the Daily Mail, more than 100 Tories were then ready to submit letters of no confidence in Truss to shop steward Graham Brady.
Yelena Ananyeva, who heads the Center for British Studies at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Vedomosti that the Conservatives were in a tough spot, for it was impossible to formally call a confidence vote before next September because of the leader’s year-long immunity, nor was it acceptable to have Truss as PM for any longer. The parliamentary scandal caused an intense dissatisfaction among MPs and in society, the expert said, so Truss’s voluntary resignation spared the Tories the need to make decisions on their own.
Andrey Kochetkov, a leading global research analyst at Otkritie Investment, said Truss was not entirely responsible for the crisis facing the British economy. She just pushed the country closer to it, in particular, by crushing the pound, the more so since the government was getting ready for a high-inflation-rate scenario. In his view, it is the Bank of England that caused the crisis, or rather its money printing, and the energy crisis. The expert believes the stubbornly high inflation is likely to persist regardless of what the new Cabinet will do, and a long recession, if not a depression, as well as lower living standards could await the country, Kochetkov concluded.
Truss was in a difficult position from the start, Research Fellow at the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs/Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the Higher School of Economics Sergey Shein told the newspaper. "She had too few reserves and too little room for maneuvering, besides, she had no one to rely on," he said. "She attempted to follow the course of her hero, Margaret Thatcher, in lowering taxes, which contradicted her own plans to offset household expenses amid the energy crisis," Shein noted. "So, the most ideological and odious Conservatives became opposed to the prime minister after those plans failed." The expert doubts Boris Johnson would return to Downing Street though, despite the fact that polls show he tops the list of those who could replace Truss, because the Tories have numerous complaints against him. Thus, the parliamentarians will use all their leverage to stop Johnson from regaining power, Shein argued.
Izvestia: EU not ready to sever all contacts with Russia, ex-envoy Chizhov says
In an interview with Izvestia, former Russian Permanent Representative to the EU Vladimir Chizhov said that the European Union had almost entirely frozen its cooperation with Russia, while Moscow had not closed any doors and all its measures had so far been retaliatory. Moscow has always realized that it would reconsider the measures if the EU reviewed its position, he said. However, he added, the bloc should change its attitude to Russia for that, yet EU leaders have been following the lead of Washington and even Kiev, getting sucked deeper into the campaign to support the Zelensky regime. "They have been doing so in order to minimize the chances of resuming interaction with us. But when the EU sobers up enough to realize that they need to review their stance, they will know where to find us," Chizhov insisted.
Speaking of Russia’s continued presence in the EU, he said: "I believe we should maintain our presence in the EU. I quit [the post], and the Russian Permanent Mission to the EU is currently led by my deputy, Russia’s Acting Charge d’Affaires to the European Union Kirill Logvinov. I don’t know when a new ambassador will be appointed. Apparently, it will take some time, but it will certainly happen sooner or later - whatever it takes, and despite the difficulties [our] colleagues still in Brussels are faced with," Chizhov said, when asked if Russia’s Permanent Mission to the EU could be downgraded under the current circumstances. Chizhov also said he would not have told Izvestia who could replace him at the post even if he had known the candidate’s name.
Meanwhile, rampant Russophobia is raging in Brussels and other Western capitals, he complained. "Attempts are being made to restrict our work - months ago, 19 diplomats at the Permanent Mission were randomly declared personae non gratae and had to leave Brussels. Various restrictions are being imposed, and interbank contacts have been cancelled," Chizhov said. However, the European Union is not ready to sever all ties with Russia, he concluded.
Vedomosti: Republicans may curtail US assistance to Ukraine
On Wednesday, Kevin McCarthy, the leader of the Republican minority in the House of Representatives, said his party would revisit the US assistance to Ukraine, citing economic problems in the United States itself. Davyd Arakhamia, head of President Vladimir Zelensky’s People’s Servant party in Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada, said he was shocked to hear McCarthy’s suggestions. He told the Financial Times: "Just a few weeks ago, our delegation visited the US and had a meeting with McCarthy. We were assured that bipartisan support of Ukraine in its war with Russia will remain a top priority even if they win in the elections."
The Republicans do stand a chance of regaining the majority in both legislative chambers in the US midterm election slated for November 8, which could significantly hamper the work of Joe Biden’s Democrats. In a CNBC poll on Sunday, 48% of the respondents said they would vote for the Republicans, while 46% favored the Democrats. The Biden administration did not previously warn Kiev it would cut its military or other assistance to Ukraine in case of a Republican win, Politico reported. However, the Ukrainian leadership is well aware of such prospects. This is why Zelensky’s government has been lobbying its interests both among the Democrats and the Republicans - to guarantee aid to Ukraine even amid a protracted conflict or an intensified global recession, according to Politico.
Viktoria Zhuravleva, who heads the Department of American Studies of IMEMO at the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Vedomosti that any further assistance to Ukraine would slow down, if the Republicans win. They will hardly review the current assistance programs or order an audit, she said. According to the expert, they are talking about a possible reduction or adjustment of future US aid to Ukraine. There is no need to expect a radical change in the US leadership's approach to Ukraine: even with a Republican Congress, Washington will continue to support Kiev. Still, the GOP is reluctant to spend as much money on Ukraine as the Biden administration has been squandering.
Editor-in-Chief of the Russia in Global Affairs magazine Fyodor Lukyanov told the newspaper that the existing US programs of assistance to Ukraine were almost equal to laws already, so the Republicans might not cast those aside. He doubts the GOP will reconsider the US view to the military activity in Ukraine, instead the Republicans could delay any further aid or stretch out the available packages for a more lasting effect. Therefore, a Republican Congress would have less zest to provide military or any other assistance to Kiev, however, it would not abandon it altogether, the expert concluded.
Izvestia: Five Russian nationals charged by US Department of Justice in sanctions evasion
The US will not swap Artyom Uss, the son of the Krasnoyarsk governor, or any other arrested Russian citizen, for Paul Whelan, the US national’s lawyer Vladimir Zherebenkov told Izvestia. Uss was arrested in Italy, while another Russian, Yury Orekhov, was detained in Germany. The United States said it had launched the extradition procedure, but Germany warned that the process could take six to 12 months. Zherebenkov said Viktor Bout had been in line for a while to be exchanged for Whelan. He also said that Italy and Germany would obey the Americans and extradite the Russians. However, he said, no prisoner swap can take place until the sentence comes into force.
US prosecutors are accusing five Russians and two Venezuelan oil traders of masterminding an intricate scheme of stealing US military technology for the Russian defense industry and smuggling millions of barrels of oil from sanctioned Venezuela. Orekhov is indicted as the CEO and managing director of NDA GmbH, a Hamburg-based trader of industrial equipment, with Uss as the co-owner. In addition, the US authorities claim that Orekhov and Uss used their business to cover up the smuggling of Venezuelan oil for Russian and Chinese consumers. If found guilty, they could face up to 30 years behind bars.
Associate Professor at the Russian Government’s Financial University Valery Andrianov recalled to Izvestia that Washington’s sanctions target individuals and companies under US jurisdiction only, so any attempts to extend the restrictions to third countries would be in violation of international law. "It’s okay if the US is reluctant to buy Venezuelan oil, but they are not in a position to make other countries cede their cooperation with Caracas," he said. "Indeed, there are secondary sanctions that could hit buyers of Venezuelan oil, which is why some counterparties have been resorting to various schemes not to advertise any fuel purchases from Caracas."
US political analyst John Varoli told Izvestia that the Biden administration had ramped up these activities ahead of the midterm election. We will see a lot of activity in the next 17 days, especially because Biden needs to tout his ‘Ukraine aid’ to his electorate, he said. Meanwhile, requests for the extradition of Uss and Orekhov could be linked to their ties with the energy sector, rather than any potential exchange for Americans in the future. The goal Biden and his administration have been pursuing is to destroy the Russian economy, and they have been using as much pressure as possible to succeed in that, Varoli said.
Kommersant: Moscow not ready to drop support for Damascus
Russia does not intend to ditch its support of Syria, even with a substantial part of its armed forces currently involved in the military operation in Ukraine, Oleg Gorshenin, the new head of Russia’s inter-agency coordination headquarters on the repatriation of Syrian refugees, said on Thursday. At a meeting in Damascus, he was echoed by Alexander Lavrentyev, Russia’s special presidential representative for Syria, who affirmed that Moscow would continue to support the Syrian army in its fight against terrorism.
The New York Times reported on Thursday that Russia had shrunk its troops in Syria and that Moscow could now be playing a less important role in the region. The New York Times also said several commanders had been redeployed from Syria to Ukraine, while Moscow had become less involved in the day-to-day management of the operations in Syria, including military coordination with Israel.
The experts interviewed by Kommersant believe Russia will not abandon Syria. "Talks about any withdrawal from Syria are nonsense, because Moscow’s policy on Syria has been a systemic element of Russia’s strategy in the Middle East," the head of the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vasily Kuznetsov said. He acknowledged that relations between Russia and Central Asia are currently being tweaked against the backdrop of the conflict in Ukraine and that Arab nations had been watching the situation around Ukraine closely, with most of them sitting on the fence.
Nor does Moscow see any ground in talks about Russia’s withdrawal from Syria in military terms. In an interview with Kommersant, military expert Yury Lyamin described the recent fluctuations in the number of Russian troops in the Middle Eastern country as a routine rotation of commanders. As for Israel, he said the lack of presence of a Russian contingent in Syria and the understanding that Moscow could create lots of problems for the Israelis through Iran has been a deterrent recently.
