© Presidential Press and Information Office/TASS

Top stories from the Russian press on Friday, March 31st, prepared by TASS

A US reporter was arrested in Russia for espionage for the first time in modern history, Putin may attend the commissioning of Turkey’s first nuke plant in April, and Russia keeps upgrading its nuclear forces. These stories topped Friday’s newspaper headlines across Russia.

Kommersant: US reporter nabbed for spying in Russia for first time since Cold War era

A foreign reporter was detained in Russia on suspicion of espionage for the first time in modern history. Evan Gershkovich, a US national working for The Wall Street Journal’s Moscow bureau, was arrested and will be kept in custody at the Lefortovo pre-trial detention center until late May. Investigators say the US citizen was collecting information about the activities of enterprises within Russia’s military-industrial complex in the Urals and was caught red-handed. He may face up to 20 years behind bars. Gershkovich’s colleagues insist that he was doing professional journalism and suspect he was arrested for the sake of a prisoner exchange. The United States called on all Americans to leave Russia immediately.

The last time a foreign reporter was accused of espionage was back in the Soviet era. On August 30, 1986, KGB officers detained US News & World Report’s Nicholas Daniloff in Moscow. The reporter denied his guilt.

Vyacheslav Vegner, a lawmaker in the Sverdlovsk Region, who was interviewed by Gershkovich during his trip, said the reporter had asked him questions about the military-industrial complex in Yekaterinburg, namely about a local factory. Gershkovich also inquired about the lawmaker’s communication with Wagner PMC founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, according to TASS.

In an interview with Kommersant, Yaroslav Shirshikov, a local public activist, said he spent two days with Gershkovich in Yekaterinburg. The main objective of Gershkovich’s mission "was to analyze society’s attitude toward Prigozhin. He wanted to find out whether public support for the special military operation was growing or dwindling," Shirshikov said.

Lawyer Ivan Melnikov, who specializes in the repatriation of Russians, told Kommersant that there are many Russians in the United States who have been kidnapped and illegally removed from various countries. However, all of them are accused of cybercrime or financial fraud, and none of them is suspected of espionage, Melnikov said. According to him, should Washington initiate a swap involving Gershkovich, Moscow could demand the release of several Russian nationals, for example, Alexander Vinnik, Dmitry Ukrainsky, Roman Selezhyov or Vladislav Klyushin.

Meanwhile, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told reporters that a swap for Gershkovich was not currently being discussed.

Vedomosti: Putin may attend launch of Turkish nuke plant

Russian President Vladimir Putin may participate in the April 27 nuclear fuel-loading ceremony at Turkey’s first nuclear power plant, Akkuyu, a joint venture with Russian state-owned nuclear corporation Rosatom, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told A Haber television. The launch will take place two and a half weeks ahead of the May 14 presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkey. While the Turkish leader said that Putin could take part in the ceremony during his official visit, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that no concrete decisions had been made yet.

A Rosatom official confirmed to Vedomosti that fuel would indeed be brought to the Akkuyu NPP construction site in Turkey later this spring. "As soon as nuclear fuel arrives, the NPP will become a nuclear facility, and Turkey will [officially] become a country with nuclear power," he said. Rosatom refused to comment on Putin’s potential participation.

On May 14, main opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu from the country’s center-left Republican People’s Party will challenge Erdogan for the country’s presidency. The latest poll by Aksoy Arastirma, a think tank affiliated with the opposition, showed that 56.8% of respondents are ready to vote for Kilicdaroglu, while the incumbent leader is supported by 43.2% of voters.

Given his mixed popularity, Erdogan, as incumbent president, has decided to bring out the "heavy artillery" by using foreign leaders to support his election campaign, said Amur Gadzhiyev, a researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Oriental Studies. Kirill Semyonov, an expert with the Russian International Affairs Council, agrees. To him, Putin potentially attending the ceremony at the Akkuyu NPP in April, shortly before the elections is a major symbolic act. This could play into boosting Erdogan’s approval ratings ahead of the election as it will show what a significant role Turkey has been playing in foreign policy thanks to the president’s activism, Semyonov said. The ceremony at the Akkuyu NPP will also showcase the country’s technological development to both foreign and domestic observers, since having nuclear power is still viewed as a "prestigious accessory" in the international arena, he added. Meanwhile, the Russian leader’s participation in a ceremony during a visit outside the CIS amid the Western sanctions and in the wake of the recent International Criminal Court ruling could demonstrate that attempts to isolate Russia internationally have failed, Semyonov concluded.

Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Russia learning how to overcome Europe’s anti-missile shield

In the wake of Russia’s suspended participation in New START, the country continues to upgrade its nuclear forces. As part of an inspection in Siberia, Yars intercontinental ballistic missile system crews were sent on combat patrols under the command of Colonel-General Sergey Karakayev. Next Monday, the Russian Aerospace Forces will begin training Belarusian pilots to fly aircraft capable of carrying Russian tactical nuclear weapons.

"In military terms, Russian nukes deployed in Belarus would help destroy the alliance’s major strategic targets aimed against Moscow in Romania, Poland and the Baltic countries as well as US missile defense facilities in Europe in the event of a military conflict with NATO," a military expert, retired Lieutenant-General Yury Netkachev told Nezavisimaya Gazeta. According to him, intercontinental ballistic missiles placed in central Russia and Siberia will be able to strike any key strategic NATO target in Europe. That is why, Netkachev said, the Russian Armed Forces focus so much on measures to arrange and hold strategic nuclear maneuvers aimed, among other things, at destroying US missile defenses in Europe, and this worries NATO.

Netkachev pointed out that Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces also think about how to overcome missile defenses, not only in geopolitical and organizational terms, but also from a purely military-technical point of view. The expert referred to a remark Karakayev made while summing up combat training of the Strategic Missile Forces in 2022. Then, the commander said that the leadership of the Strategic Missile Forces was taking military-technical measures to reduce the potential of the prospective US missile defense system in Europe. He also noted that the Russian Armed Forces "continue work to reduce the visibility of missiles and warheads and vary the trajectory and ballistic capabilities" of intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Kommersant: Foreign lenders eclipse Russian banking sector in 2022

Foreign banks managed to earn quite a lot in Russia last year. Overall, foreign lenders’ profits exceeded 211 billion rubles ($2.8 billion), while the entire banking sector, including Russian banks, actually earned less - 203 billion rubles ($2.6 billion). While foreign lenders’ loan portfolio shrank, they drew more deposits, mostly from corporate clients.

However, foreign banks’ profits cannot be described as homogenous, analysts say. "There are retail banks with low profitability, and there are players in auto financing who operated amid the collapsing car market, as well as a number of large or universal foreign banks whose foreign exchange margin expanded drastically in 2022," Chief Analyst at Sberbank Mikhail Matovnikov said.

Olga Ulyanova, a banking analyst, cites two reasons as to why foreign banks saw a drop in their retail deposit portfolios. "I assume that people withdrew cash dollars and euros in line with the established limit of $10,000, and also clients might have partially transferred their non-cash funds abroad," she told Kommersant.

"Many foreign banks are mulling leaving Russia. Besides, such banks often serviced international companies, and since foreign businesses were exiting Russia in 2022, the volume of portfolios dropped," Ulyanova explained. According to Matovnikov, parent firms could have their own vision of the scale of Russian risks, "and it is likely that the risks proved out to be unacceptable, hence the decline in loan portfolios."

Vedomosti: Russia’s ruling party to lead fight against neocolonialism

In October, the first international forum should gather activists against neocolonialism. The initiative put forward by the United Russia party has the backing of Russian President Vladimir Putin, party leader Dmitry Medvedev, who is also Deputy Chairman of the country’s Security Council, announced at the inaugural meeting of the organizing committee on Thursday. The second meeting may take place in May, when the program of a founding meeting, as well as the list of participants and concluding documents will be finalized, Medvedev specified. The idea was supported by 14 countries, whose officials addressed the maiden meeting of the organizing committee. These included all the BRICS countries, except India, as well as Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Indonesia, Cuba, Laos, Lebanon, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Syria and South Africa.

The trend of counteracting neocolonial policies was set by Russian President Vladimir Putin when he addressed the Federal Assembly on February 21, political analyst Konstantin Kostin said. That, he said, was a key message of the president’s speech. "The issue of restoring equality in the system of international relations against any form of coercion - actually, against neocolonialism - is extremely relevant for the United Russia party as Putin’s party," the expert said.

Political scientist Yevgeny Minchenko says there is a rationale behind the party’s initiative. "Since the Western world has consolidated against Russia, it is necessary to work not with the Western world," he said. Of course, no quick result should be expected, as this will be quite a long process, he warned. "I think that voting on controversial issues at the United Nations is an aspect showing why this strategy could be effective. But this policy line will take years, or even decades, to evolve," Minchenko told Vedomosti.