© Mikhail Klimentyev/Russian Presidential Press and Information Office/TASS

Top stories from the Russian press on Thursday, March 16th, prepared by TASS

The leaders of Syria and Russia hold talks in Moscow, the Ukraine Defense Contact Group concludes its 10th meeting without pledging fighter jet supplies, while Russia, Iran and China kick off joint naval drills. These stories topped Thursday’s newspaper headlines across Russia.

Vedomosti: Syrian president arrives in Moscow for key discussions with Putin

Syrian leader Bashar Assad’s working visit to Moscow on Wednesday was his first to the capital since Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine. Assad last met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in September 2021. This time around, the Syrian president arrived in Moscow late on Tuesday against the backdrop of a deepening energy crisis in Syria caused by a shortage of fuel and issues with fuel supplies from Iran. Simultaneously, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov received his Syrian counterpart Faisal Mekdad in Moscow, while the two countries’ defense chiefs, Sergey Shoigu and Ali Mahmoud Abbas, held a meeting, too. In addition, the deputy foreign ministers of Syria, Turkey, Iran and Russia are meeting in the Russian capital on March 15-16.

Assad and Putin met amid growing rapprochement between Turkey and Syria with Russia’s mediation: Ankara and Damascus severed diplomatic relations in 2012, when Turkey supported armed opposition groups in Syria. Normalization between the two countries could usher in talks between Assad and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and potentially lead to the restoration of bilateral diplomatic ties.

Turkish-Syrian rapprochement with Russia’s mediation will continue, as Moscow finds it very important to push Assad toward further normalizing relations with Erdogan, according to Kirill Semyonov, an expert with the Russian International Affairs Council. He said that Russia would hate to lose Turkey as an economic partner amid the Ukrainian crisis and international sanctions.

And Russia could give Erdogan an additional trump card ahead of elections, the expert added. Moscow wants Erdogan to stay in power, because a potential rise of the opposition to power may hurt Russian-Turkish relations, Semyonov believes. Besides, Moscow would like to play a more active role in Syria’s reconstruction while Damascus is seeking financial and economic assistance and is looking for some opportunities there, especially after Russian companies and banks fell under sanctions, the expert concluded.

Izvestia: Ramstein meeting tightlipped on fighter jet supplies to Ukraine

On Wednesday, the Ukraine Defense Contact Group held its 10th meeting at Germany’s Ramstein air base. No big decisions were made at the jubilee summit. What was most notable was the statement by US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who spoke about the nine countries that had agreed to transfer Leopard tanks to Ukraine. The Pentagon chief added that the number of nations who will supply Kiev with air defenses would also increase.

As a result, at the anniversary meeting of Ramstein, promises were made to Kiev, which have now become the usual practice, military analyst Viktor Litovkin told Izvestia. "Yes, they will continue sending weapons, but they can’t really change anything in this special military operation," he said.

Meanwhile, the Kiev regime has abandoned any hope that the Ramstein meetings will discuss sending fighter jets to Ukraine in the short term. Slovakia was expected to announce sending MiG-29 aircraft to Ukraine, but the government did not make such a decision as it held only informal discussions on the issue.

According to Russian International Affairs Council Program Coordinator Konstantin Sukhoverkhov, handing MiG-20s over to Kiev would be easier than supplying it with Western fighter jets: there are more MiG-29 aircraft available at warehouses and it could be more feasible to supply them in terms of logistics and timeframes. Moreover, the Ukrainian military would not have to undergo a lengthy retraining program, unlike with the US-made F-16 fighters that Kiev has requested.

Litovkin agrees that it would be almost impossible to send Western-made fighter jets to Ukraine in the current circumstances. It would take at least a year to train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 jets and airfields would need special equipment to operate the aircraft, he argues.

Vedomosti: Russia, China, Iran hold joint naval drills in Gulf of Oman

Russia, Iran and China will hold joint naval exercises in the Gulf of Oman from March 15-19, the Chinese Defense Ministry announced on WeChat on Wednesday. Russia’s top brass confirmed this information on its Telegram channel later on March 15.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the trilateral naval drills, titled Maritime Security Belt 2023, began in the waters around the Chabahar Port in the Islamic Republic of Iran on Wednesday. The Chinese Defense Ministry said in a statement that the Security Bond-2023 maneuvers would help boost practical cooperation between the three countries’ navies and show their resolve to prop up maritime security.

This will be the third trilateral naval exercise of its kind. The three countries last held such drills in January 2022 and before that in December 2019. For Russia, the rationale behind the maneuvers is to expand the geographical reach of its fleet, which is especially valuable in the current political circumstances, Research Fellow with the IMEMO Institute at the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Vedomosti. According to him, Iran and China are Russia’s key partners, and the three nations already have experience in holding joint drills. Besides, this time, the exercises are being held in a region of interest for each of the three countries, Kramnik explained.

The Gulf of Oman is a major strategic seaway, therefore a naval presence there is important for Russia, Director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the Higher School of Economics Vasily Kashin points out. Russia has a special relationship with Iran that is closer than that between Tehran and Beijing, who have signed a 25-year agreement on strategic and economic partnership, the expert said. China is interested in these drills amid its consistent efforts to establish a presence in the Indian Ocean and ramp up its partnership with Iran, Kashin said. Moscow and Beijing began holding joint exercises with Iran back during Donald Trump’s presidency, when the two countries could thus show their support for Iran, the expert concluded.

Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Saudi Arabia speaks out against oil price ceiling

Saudi Arabia, a key player on the oil market, stood up against US threats to oil exporters as well as attempts to put pressure on global prices by imposing price limits and ceilings. Though Riyadh is being driven by its own interests, its pushback could protect Russia from losing all its oil and gas revenues. According to the International Energy Agency, Russia has allegedly lost almost half of its oil and gas revenues since it announced a "voluntary" oil production cut in March. Russian Energy Minister Nikolay Shulginov announced the reduction of oil and gas production in Russia during his report to the State Duma.

Experts say that Saudi Arabia’s move could mean that oil exporters will refuse to join the oil ceiling in any official way. "It makes sense for oil-exporting countries to see a future risk to their own interests in attempts to impose selling price restrictions on Russia. Therefore, Russia’s circumventing the restrictions would mean that OPEC+ would succeed in doing so, too," asset manager at BCS World of Investments Vitaly Gromadin argues.

TeleTrade analyst Alexey Fyodorov sees three messages in the statement by the Saudi energy minister, who said his country will not sell oil to any nation who would agree to impose a price cap on its supplies. First, Riyadh made its position clear in the event of a potential conflict between the United States and China when the West would sanction Beijing by restricting energy supplies to China, Fyodorov said. Secondly, Saudi Arabia asserted its political status as a key player in the Middle East that does not have to ask for permission from the collective West, say, to benefit from re-exporting Russian oil and petroleum products to Europe and other regions. Thirdly, Fyodorov said, the announcement came at a time when Brent plunged to $77-79 per barrel over market fears of a global recession amid major problems facing US and European banks. This is how Riyadh expects to underpin oil prices, "for if Saudi Arabia unilaterally imposes an embargo, the rest of OPEC is likely to follow suit," the analyst concluded.

Kommersant: Russia to suspend tax benefits with unfriendly countries

On Wednesday, Russia’s Finance Ministry and Foreign Ministry suggested that the president decree to put on pause the agreement on avoiding double taxation with unfriendly nations. Such a measure would be a response to the anti-Russian sanctions and February’s decision to add Russia to the blacklist of jurisdictions that do not cooperate with the European Union on tax issues. The two ministries did not provide a list of countries with which double taxation should be suspended, while Russia has signed around 80 bilateral agreements in this sphere, of which about 40 are with unfriendly countries, including Cyprus, Luxembourg, the United States and Switzerland.

Among other things, freezing bilateral agreements will ban legal entities or individuals from using reduced or zero tax rates for income from dividends, interest and royalties. Individuals who rent real estate abroad will be affected, too. Lawyers note that double taxation agreements were in effect last year, but their use was limited because of sanctions, so any freeze would mean higher taxes for Russian businesses who still have - or are forced to have - a presence in unfriendly jurisdictions.

Alexander Tokarev, a partner at Kept, suspects that an unfriendly nation is unlikely to continue using the double taxation agreement if Russia suspends it. While there will hardly be any major consequences for foreign companies, Russian businesses, especially those groups who have been reshaping their "foreign contour," may suffer, the expert warned.