© Dmitry Astakhov/POOL/TASS

Top stories from the Russian press on Wednesday, May 10th, prepared by TASS

The attendance of seven out of nine CIS leaders at Tuesday’s Victory Day parade in Moscow seen as success for Russian foreign policy; Brussels to host talks between Armenia’s Pashinyan and Azerbaijan’s Aliyev on Sunday; and EU working on secondary sanctions on third countries in bid to stem circumvention of previous anti-Russian restrictions. These stories topped Wednesday’s newspaper headlines across Russia.

Vedomosti: In last-minute twist, almost all CIS leaders attend Moscow’s Victory Day parade

Seven out of nine CIS leaders visited Moscow for the traditional Victory Day parade on Red Square on May 9. The nine dignitaries in attendance were President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, President of Kyrgyzstan Sadyr Japarov, President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon, President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev, President of Turkmenistan Serdar Berdimuhamedow, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko and Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan.

Only two CIS leaders abstained, namely Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Moldavan President Maia Sandu, which came as no surprise. Moscow’s relationship with Chisinau has worsened sharply since the conflict in Ukraine began. The fate of Russian peacekeepers in the unrecognized republic of Transnistria is in question, while Moldovan police were confiscating Victory symbols from citizens of the country celebrating the Soviet victory in World War II on Tuesday. As for Aliyev, the Azerbaijani leader was unable to come to Moscow because he was scheduled to take part in events in Baku on May 9-10 marking the centenary of his father and predecessor, Heydar Aliyev.

The unexpected presence of such a substantial number of foreign leaders at this year’s Victory Day parade showed that they are seeking to bolster their respective countries’ cooperative ties with Russia, said Dmitry Ofitserov-Belsky, senior researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of World Economy and International Relations. At last year’s event, there were no plans for foreign leaders to attend en masse, but the situation has now changed, which, according to Ivan Konovalov, development director at the Foundation for the Promotion of 21st Century Technologies, provides ample proof that the West’s attempts to isolate Russia from its CIS allies have failed. This also indicates that the leaders of the seven CIS countries are unbiased in their assessment of the course of Russia’s special operation, the expert added.

For the most part, the seven leaders who visited Moscow represent those former Soviet republics whose foreign policy course is not so heavily dominated by a pro-European orientation, and, on the contrary, is more geared toward a pro-Russian or pro-Chinese course, said Alexander Karavayev, a researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Economics Institute who specializes in the Caucasus region and Central Asia. Armenia was the exception, he said, noting that the most likely reason for Pashinyan’s visit to the Russian capital was to conduct consultations with Russian President Vladimir Putin on normalizing the fraught relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, given that Baku and Yerevan are now struggling to progress toward signing a peace agreement while conducting intensive talks.

Kommersant: Brussels invites leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan for talks

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev have reached an agreement to hold talks in Brussels on May 14, which are to be mediated by European Council head Charles Michel. The negotiations will be aimed at bringing the neighboring countries closer to signing a peace treaty. Earlier, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov met in Washington. Russia makes no secret of its view of this meeting as being driven by Western ambitions to disrupt the negotiations between Moscow, Yerevan and Baku. Meanwhile, on May 9, while Pashinyan was in Moscow attending the Victory Day parade on Red Square, the Armenian Foreign Ministry rushed to announce that a similar meeting would soon be held in the Russian capital, as well.

Against the backdrop of reports about the May 14 talks between Pashinyan and Aliyev in Brussels, experts have reconsidered their views on the Armenian premier’s visit to Moscow for the May 9 celebration. Although his primary goal was to attend the parade, Pashinyan may have also been seeking an opportunity to coordinate his stance with that of the Kremlin ahead of his trip to the EU headquarters. On Tuesday, Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Paruyr Hovhannisyan announced that Pashinyan and Aliyev will hold trilateral talks in Moscow after the Brussels meeting. According to Hovhannisyan, since nobody was expecting any miracles to come from the recent Washington talks between Pashinyan and Aliyev, "the work will be continued."

"The CSTO and EAEU leaders’ gathering in Moscow on May 9 was intended to show that they are Russia’s allies," an Armenian political analyst, Johnny Melikyan, told Kommersant. Commenting on Armenia’s position on the negotiations, he said that the Moscow format has been rivaled by the Brussels talks since Russia launched its special military operation. Melikyan doubts the two sides would be able to coordinate a draft peace agreement until they resolve the fundamental issues facing the two countries.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin has not yet announced any trilateral meeting between Armenia’s Pashinyan, Azerbaijan’s Aliyev and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Izvestia: What results may come from EU secondary sanctions on third countries?

Brussels has nearly reached the limits of its capacity to impose sectoral sanctions, as it is becoming increasingly difficult for Europe to cope with the negative consequences of such restrictions, the Russian Permanent Mission to the EU told Izvestia. Nevertheless, the EU is now mulling instituting new restrictive measures against third countries, mostly in Central Asia, as part of its latest package of sanctions.

Gunnar Beck, a European Parliament member (MEP) from Germany, told Izvestia that the idea of imposing secondary sanctions illustrates the growing frustration in the EU with the circumvention of anti-Russian restrictions via third countries. Now, the European Commission expects that the new mechanism will serve "as a threat to force other states to comply" with the sanctions, he added. Among other countries, the EU could impose such secondary sanctions on Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, the MEP emphasized. However, he doubts that the new sanctions would be effective, since the Central Asian economies already have close trade ties with Russia, China and India.

The EU will most likely coordinate its latest sanctions package with its Western allies at the G7 summit in Hiroshima on May 19-21, the Russian Permanent Mission to the EU said.

Thierry Mariani, a French MEP, finds the sanctions tools obsolete. Hatred toward Russia is now the EU’s official position, yet the fact that Eastern European member states have been busy ensnaring the entire bloc further in the logic of war essentially runs counter to the interests of the peoples of Western Europe, the politician argues.

According to Beck, the 10 previous packages of sanctions have failed to achieve their objective of undermining Russia’s ability to continue its special operation in Ukraine, while the restrictions have hit major EU economies harder than they have Russia. And yet, the German politician finds it hard to imagine how economic relations between Russia and the bloc could return to normal anytime soon once the Ukraine conflict comes to an end.

Vedomosti: Former Pakistani prime minister arrested

On Tuesday, former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was arrested in the capital, Islamabad, on charges brought by the country’s anti-corruption regulator, the National Accountability Bureau. The ex-premier, who was ousted in April 2022, has rejected the charges of misappropriation of funds, claiming they are politicized.

The former Pakistani head of government was arrested after three previous attempts to do so had failed. A district court in Islamabad ordered that he be arrested back on February 28. Since then, the police either faced fierce resistance from Khan’s supporters or could not locate him at his residence.

Gleb Makarevich of the Center for Asia-Pacific Studies at IMEMO RAS told Vedomosti that, since 2014, when Khan, a former cricket star, began his political career, the opinion has been growing within Pakistan that he would succeed in weakening the influence of the powerful Bhutto-Zardari clans and the Sharif family, which have produced the bulk of Pakistan’s prime ministers in recent decades.

Khan’s party is supported by a majority of residents of Punjab, the country’s most populated province and home region of the Sharif family, not to mention those areas inhabited by Pashtuns, the ex-premier’s own native ethnic group, thus giving his party a strong chance of winning the election.

Makarevich warns that Khan’s arrest may spark large-scale protests and an escalation of violence. If Khan is not killed, he will be able to stage a return to politics, even despite a potential prison sentence, the analyst said. The army may need Khan again, as he could gain popularity as a politician who does not promote the interests of the traditional clans, Makarevich concluded.

Kommersant: Asia in no rush to buy LNG

Market fears about a quick recovery in gas demand in China and rising LNG prices for Europe have not yet materialized. Spot LNG prices for northeast Asia have fallen below $360 per 1,000 cubic meters, or the lowest since June 2021. Off-season demand for LNG from key consumers on the Asian continent is still weak, thus allowing EU countries to fill their gas storage facilities for the coming winter. However, analysts do not preclude a change in the situation in the coming months.

LNG purchases by a significant number of Asian importers, such as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, are highly price sensitive, and, as spot prices decrease, demand from these countries may grow, independent expert Alexander Sobko told Kommersant. The analyst is already seeing the first signs of growing imports. "The demand in these markets, including in China, is quite likely to rise, which could also support LNG prices in the spot market," the analyst believes.

Sergey Kondratyev of the Institute of Energy and Finance Foundation says that LNG demand in east Asia has so far been weak in 2023, partly due to the economic slowdown in the region. The ongoing coal pivot in China put pressure on gas demand in the first quarter of the year, too, although LNG demand in China has been on the rise, he noted. "I think that the demand for LNG in China will steadily exceed last year's levels against the backdrop of an economic recovery and a slowdown in the coal renaissance as early as this summer," Kondratyev believes. "It is likely that in the coming months we will see a situation where the Asian market will once again become a premium market for LNG producers, and prices in the EU will be lower than in Asia," the analyst forecasts.