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

Top stories from the Russian press on Friday, April 28th, prepared by TASS

Putin and Erdogan give green light to nuclear fuel loading at Turkey’s Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant; a beefed-up US military footprint in the region may sour South Korea’s relations with China and Russia; and SCO defense chiefs set to discuss threats to regional and global security at New Delhi confab. These stories topped Friday’s newspaper headlines across Russia.

Vedomosti: Putin, Erdogan give green light to nuclear fuel loading at Akkuyu NPP

On April 27, the leaders of Russia and Turkey took part in a ceremony to mark the delivery of the first batch of nuclear fuel to the primary power unit at Turkey’s Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant, which is being built by Russia’s Rosatom state nuclear energy corporation. Henceforth, the station is officially the country’s first nuclear energy facility, with its physical launch scheduled to coincide with the Republic of Turkey’s centennial celebration on October 29, Vedomosti writes.

The Akkuyu NPP has been the largest overseas project carried out by Russia’s nuclear energy industry in the three decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union, said Alexander Uvarov, a nuclear energy expert and editor-in-chief of the AtomInfo.ru outlet. "The delivery of nuclear fuel to the Akkuyu station means that a fuel hub is being created there, making it possible to start fuel reception operations, which in turn means that the unit’s launch readiness level is high," Uvarov pointed out.

As well, the Akkuyu nuclear plant will help to significantly assuage Turkey’s hunger for energy and allow the country to diversify its sources of fuel supplies, Pavel Shlykov, associate professor at Moscow State University's Institute of Asian and African Studies, said. "The energy issue has been the scourge of the nation and a problem for the entire period of its industrial development. Energy prices have always been high in Turkey," the expert noted.

The Akkuyu facility is a key project for Russian-Turkish cooperation in terms of both the economy and technology, Russian International Affairs Council expert Kirill Semenov emphasized. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan seized upon the fuel loading ceremony as an opportunity to demonstrate that, despite a recent illness, his health is not in any danger and he can proceed with his re-election campaign.

"The ceremony at the Akkuyu NPP has once again demonstrated to voters that the country is successfully developing under Erdogan. Holding the title of a ‘nuclear’ power, even a civilian one, is a reason to take pride. As for Russia, [the project represents] ‘a window to the outside world,’ that is, a chance to show that it’s not isolated and, apart from natural resources, can also export complex technologies to the leading regional powers," Semenov stressed.

Izvestia: Beefed-up US military footprint to sour Seoul’s relations with China, Russia

South Korea has secured the United States’ promise of a nuclear response in case of a nuclear attack from North Korea. In addition, Washington and Seoul have decided to resume the practice of nuclear-armed US Navy submarines making calls at South Korean ports. This was the upshot of a White House meeting between the two country’s presidents, Joe Biden and Yoon Suk-yeol. Experts interviewed by Izvestia expect an increased US military presence on the Korean Peninsula to have a souring effect on South Korea’s relations with China and Russia.

Talk about the readiness of the US and South Korea to respond to any potential North Korean attack in a way that would lead to the collapse of the Pyongyang regime is nothing new, Konstantin Asmolov, lead research fellow at the Korean Studies Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of China and Contemporary Asia, pointed out. "However, it’s not about a permanent deployment of US nuclear weapons to the Korean Peninsula. It’s just that ships, aircraft and submarines carrying nuclear weapons will patrol near Korea more often, and drills aimed at calibrating a response to a potential North Korean attack will take place more often and in greater quantity," he added.

"Yoon Suk-yeol confirmed that Seoul would respect nuclear non-proliferation principles and comply with all agreements. The matter is that, amid rising tensions [in the region], all the talk about the need to contain Pyongyang’s nuclear threat by creating an equivalent threat has effectively been destigmatized in South Korea. Opinion polls show that many people in the country believe that the South needs its own nuclear bomb. Politicians from the ruling party have been talking about this for quite a long time. Clearly, the launch of a South Korean nuclear program would hammer the last nail into the coffin of what remains of a non-proliferation system. This is why Yoon Suk-yeol was asked not to do it," the expert explained.

Andrey Lankov, a professor at Seoul’s Kookmin University, notes that what is happening is of concern from the perspective of Russian and Chinese interests because, as a result [of such pro-nuclear talk], the US will beef up its military footprint near the two countries’ borders. "It is highly likely to gradually worsen South Korea’s relations with both Russia and China. However, I believe that such a deterioration in relations is inevitable anyway because, as the world is being divided into blocs, South Korea is being dragged deeper into the camp of American allies," the expert said.

Nezavisimaya Gazeta: SCO defense chiefs to discuss threats to regional, global security

The member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) are taking a course toward resolving the conflict in Ukraine by political means. This is the conclusion that can be drawn from the agenda of the upcoming meetings in New Delhi of the member states’ defense ministers (set for April 27-28) and foreign ministers (scheduled for May 4-5) who "will discuss pressing challenges and threats to regional and international security," Nezavisimaya Gazeta writes.

In September 2022, Russia’s partners in the SCO and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) took part in the Vostok 2022 strategic command and staff drills of the Russian Armed Forces. On December 2, 2022, Moscow hosted a meeting of defense ministers from the SCO and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), with Russian President Vladimir Putin stating that peacekeeping operations were becoming important for the military and humanitarian activities of the member states. "At the time, the Russian president was speaking about Russia’s partners and allies in the SCO and the CSTO. There are many of them and it’s important that their leaders aren’t indifferent to the conflict in Ukraine. Unlike NATO countries, they are determined to take humanitarian steps instead of providing military assistance to Kiev in order to help end the conflict as soon as possible. It’s possible that these steps may be related to plans for a blue-helmet-style peacekeeping mission that could be discussed under the umbrella of the SCO platform," Lieutenant General (Ret.) Yury Netkachev, a military expert, noted.

Meanwhile, the Belarusian Defense Ministry announced that defense chief Viktor Khrenin would meet with his Chinese counterpart, Li Shangfu, on April 27. "Belarus became an SCO dialogue partner in 2010 and it has been an official observer since 2015. The process of the country’s accession to the organization is now underway," Netkachev pointed out. The expert emphasized that Belarusian peacekeepers had taken part in the CSTO’s efforts to resolve the situation in Kazakhstan in January 2022. "Their participation was considered successful. In 2018, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko expressed the country’s readiness to send Belarusian peacekeeping forces to Ukraine provided that there was an agreement on the matter between the presidents of Ukraine and Russia," the analyst said.

"Ukrainian Defense Minister Alexey Reznikov said in July 2022 that Kiev was considering the deployment of peacekeepers to Donbass in a bid to resolve the crisis and was even studying an option that involved CSTO peacekeepers. Of course, it’s not the SCO. However, under certain conditions, the Shanghai Organization may also participate in humanitarian and peacekeeping activities meant to end military action by Ukraine," Netkachev noted.

Izvestia: UN food agency expects grain deal to be extended, says head of Moscow branch

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) expects the grain deal to be extended, Oleg Kobyakov, director of the FAO Liaison Office in Russia, said in an interview with Izvestia.

"Like with any other political deal, there are certain risks for its future. However, the FAO remains optimistic. We expect political will to prevail and the grain deal to be extended," Kobyakov said, adding that, "the goal is a good one: to feed people around the world."

When speaking of how Western countries’ anti-Russian sanctions were affecting the global food situation, Kobyakov noted that, "Russia is a major food producer but it’s not the only one." "All sanctions negatively affect global trade, prices and food availability in certain countries and among specific population groups within individual countries. The FAO stands for fair and transparent market trade, respect for WTO rules and the rejection of the imposition of sanctions for any reason whatsoever," he added.

According to the official, "the situation on the global fertilizer market largely depends on access to Russian exports." "Western capitals point out that there are no formal sanctions on the export of Russian food and fertilizers. However, we can talk about indirect restrictions, which include the ban on Russian vessels from calling at European ports and difficulties with processing financial transactions as most deals in the world require making advance payments yet many Russian banks have been cut off from the SWIFT system and slapped with a number of sanctions. It’s also a question of finding ships and insuring such cargos and ships," Kobyakov noted.

He pointed to a remark by Andrey Guryev, chairman of the Russian Association of Fertilizer Producers, who had said that if the current trend persisted, the number of hungry people might grow by another 500 million because of fertilizer shortages in the global market. "Notably, many of the countries that imposed sanctions and comply with them largely depend on Russian fertilizer exports. It is one of the drivers and incentives for extending the grain deal and ensuring respect for the memorandum that Russia signed with the United Nations," the director of the FAO Liaison Office in Moscow concluded.

Media: Another US bank peers into the abyss, on verge of collapse

California-based First Republic Bank (FRB) may become the fourth US bank to collapse in less than two months, following the failures of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), Signature Bank and Silvergate Bank. Should FRB follow its peers into insolvency, it could turn out to be the biggest bank collapse since the 2008 financial crisis, leaving SVB, which went bankrupt in March, far behind, Vedomosti notes.

After the collapse of SVB and Signature Bank, First Republic Bank raised additional funds from the US Federal Reserve and JPMorgan Chase. Later, 11 major US lenders agreed to inject $30 billion in deposits into FRB, but this move failed to save the beleaguered financial institution from a bank run. The lender said on April 24 that its customers had withdrawn over $100 billion in the first quarter of the year.

Yury Belikov, Validation Managing Director at the Expert RA rating agency, points to two causes behind the current situation. First, it is the overall panic of bank customers amid overblown assessments of the negative impact of Federal Reserve policy on the US banking system. Second, FRB’s senior executives acted irresponsibly when they rushed to dispose of their personal shareholdings in the bank, thereby fueling the panic further, the expert said. However, Belikov is confident that it is premature to talk about a collapse because the bank’s financial situation could still be improved if creditors and investors would only stop panicking. This could happen if the bank were to be sold quickly.

A merger with another major bank could resolve the problem, Alexey Kornikov, chief analyst at Otkritie Investment, said, adding, however, that there may not be any players in the US banking sector willing to pick up the hot potato.

A crisis in a secondary US bank does not imply any serious consequences for the Russian and global economy, said Alla Dvoretksaya, head of the Department of Economics and Finances at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration’s Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences. According to her, a worsening situation in major investment banks, including those that "saved" First Republic Bank, would have been an important global event.

"If a crisis breaks out, it would affect Russia but not in the same way that the 2008 crisis did. First, [Russia’s] trade flows have been diversified since then and directed not only to the EU and the US but also to East Asia. Second, many sectors of trade that are directed to the EU and US have been under sanctions for a year now," Antonina Levashenko, head of the Russian Center for Competencies and Analysis of Standards of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, explained. In her view, such isolation enables reducing the risk of a potential financial crisis for the Russian economy.