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Top stories from the Russian press on Friday, June 23rd, prepared by TASS

Ukraine’s dimming NATO prospects; Russia talks cooperation with Qatar; and Washington dangling carrots before New Delhi. These stories topped Friday’s newspaper headlines across Russia.

Izvestia: NATO security guarantees not in cards for Ukraine

Ukraine will not receive any security guarantees from NATO because the alliance does not provide such assurances to its partners, the British embassy in Russia told Izvestia. In any case, Kiev should not count on obtaining them even from individual countries in the North Atlantic Alliance before its July summit in Vilnius, experts think. The chances of Ukraine gaining full-fledged membership in the alliance are rather slim as well. Currently, at the very least, Hungary is against expanding the bloc through taking in its neighbor to the east. Nevertheless, major NATO players have been making assurances that they are prepared to let Ukraine in, which, by the way, runs counter to one of Moscow’s fundamental requirements, i.e. the insistence that Ukraine’s neutral status be formally enshrined in a binding agreement.

"I am expecting the usual empty rhetoric which leads nowhere because there is very serious opposition within NATO to Ukraine receiving any status that would somehow obligate the alliance," military expert Ivan Konovalov told the newspaper, adding that irritation has been growing among bloc member countries due to Kiev’s practice of constantly dictating its terms and conditions.

However, Oleg Barabanov, professor at the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs at the Higher School of Economics (HSE University), sees a possibility that the alliance may concede to taking certain steps that would satisfy some of Kiev’s demands.

"We see that the Ukrainian leadership is putting great pressure on NATO member countries in order to have some sort of certainty and clarity. I do not exclude that some serious developments may take place at the summit. It may be declared that Ukraine would be accepted right after the conflict, or, indeed, they may agree to somehow abbreviate the Membership Action Plan; this cannot be ruled out," he told Izvestia.

However, in his opinion, it is obvious that "major Western countries are not burning with desire to provide bilateral guarantees because they would have done so already had they wanted to." Konovalov concurs, stressing that such a document is binding; it is signed by the guarantors and currently few Western countries would be willing to play this role.

Vedomosti: Putin, Qatari PM discuss energy, conflicts in Syria, Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin received Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Moscow on June 22. According to the Kremlin website, they discussed a range of issues, including fostering bilateral ties in trade, food security and energy, as well as the latest developments in the Ukrainian crisis. The Russian side was also represented by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov; Alexander Novak, Deputy Prime Minister and co-chair of the Russian-Qatari Joint Commission on Trade, Economic and Technical Cooperation; and Igor Sechin, CEO and Management Board Chairman at Rosneft.

The Qatari prime minister came to Moscow to discuss issues pertaining to coordinating joint efforts in the global energy market, says Nikolay Surkov, researcher at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Primakov Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO RAS). "In this sense, Qatar and Russia are competing. I think that the sides may agree on market sharing given that Moscow has redirected its oil and gas supplies from Europe to Asia, where Qatari LNG [liquefied natural gas] has traditionally occupied serious positions. While Doha, in turn, is taking the place vacated by Russian resources in the European market with its own energy products," the expert explained.

Qatar may potentially be interested in developing Islamic banking in Russia, thinks Ivan Bocharov, a program coordinator at the Russian International Affairs Council. "Doha is one of the leading centers in the field of Islamic finance. Given that Russian legislation allows for Sharia-compliant banking activities in the country, the Qataris would like to take up this promising niche," the expert notes. Another possibility is cooperation in technical and scientific fields, he adds. According to Bocharov, Russia has a great deal of know-how and best practices in nuclear technologies, particularly in nuclear medicine, which may be of interest to Qatar.

Bocharov adds that the sides most likely discussed the issue of settling the Syrian crisis. Doha has not had any diplomatic ties with Damascus since 2011 and has been actively financing the armed Syrian opposition in the country’s northwest to this day. "The Qataris are bargaining with the Russian leadership on this issue. However, it is hardly likely that Qatar will change its approach to the Syrian track in the near future," the expert thinks.

Additionally, Qatar is apparently promoting itself as a mediator in the Russian-Ukrainian crisis, adds Surkov. "For Doha, this is an issue of international prestige. I doubt that the Arab monarchy could influence Moscow and Kiev, though, as it is not a country on that scale. Yes, they could offer their country’s services as a neutral negotiating venue, but they cannot serve as guarantors of any potential agreements and would hardly be likely to send peacekeeping forces should a peace treaty be concluded," the expert said.

Nezavisimaya Gazeta: US seeks to prod India to take tougher stance toward China, Russia

The US has proclaimed India as its most important strategic partner and hopes to bolster their military interaction within the framework of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD), or the Quad, an alliance that also includes Japan and Australia, a US representative said on the occasion of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's state visit to Washington. Since this contravenes New Delhi’s longstanding principle of non-alignment, the US is pulling various carrots out of its hat to dangle before the Indians, including supplies of drones and fighter jet engines, as well as assistance in microchip production and space exploration. In return, India would be expected to condemn Russia’s policy in Ukraine and be a more active counterweight to China’s dominant position in Asia.

To this end, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan says that both the US and India are committed to democratic values. However, this is not enough to achieve any changes in India’s foreign policy strategy. For instance, it became known that, in May, India increased its oil purchases from Russia instead of cutting them. Washington is also calculating that India, much like other Russian partners in the area of military-technical cooperation, will begin experiencing a lack of supplies of spare parts for Russian military hardware.

According to an expert quoted by Nezavisimaya Gazeta, however, the actual picture is quite different. Although Russia cannot hope to compete with the US as regards drones, Moscow is fulfilling contracts in other areas. Boris Volkhonsky, associate professor at Moscow State University’s Institute of Asian and African Studies, pointed out that, for instance, a contract for delivering S-400 surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems is being executed in full. "Of course, India would like to diversify its arms supplies. Earlier, the share of Russian weapons was 70%, but now it has dropped to 50%. And India’s stance on Ukraine is unlikely to change. It retains its independent course and does not want to lose prestige by giving in to external pressure," the expert thinks.

Vedomosti: Ukraine mulling pulling plug on Russian gas transit after 2024

Any extension of Russian gas transit to the EU via Ukrainian territory after the current five-year agreement expires in 2024 is hardly likely with Kiev now "getting systems ready to cut deliveries," according to Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko.

Finam analyst Sergey Kaufman thinks that continued transit of Russian gas though Ukraine is highly improbable given the current situation. Halting gas transit, despite being a logical step by the Kiev regime under the conditions of the ongoing special military operation, will seriously affect both the export of pipeline gas from Russia and the state of the Ukrainian economy, thinks Alfa-Bank Senior Analyst Nikita Blokhin. The expert notes that, while Russia’s Gazprom stands to lose an important destination for Russian gas sales, the Ukrainian budget will lose one of its key revenue items.

On the other hand, the general trend of European consumers toward rejecting Russian gas is obvious, and thus sooner or later the volumes pumped in that direction would have declined anyway, Blokhin notes. That said, Russia can still supply the key consumers of Russian pipeline gas, such as Hungary and Serbia, via the TurkStream system’s export capacities. According to the expert, this route can supply the EU’s southern flank with additional volumes because, a year earlier, the construction of necessary interconnectors in that region was completed.

According to Kaufman, within 1.5 years, growing supply in the LNG market will allow even central European countries to replace Russian gas with deliveries from littoral European countries. The analyst notes that the pumping of gas through Turkey can also be increased, but says he is unsure whether EU countries would agree to import Russian gas.

Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Israel set to take extreme measures in West Bank

Israeli security forces continue to conduct operations in the West Bank amid clashes that erupted following a failed raid by the special-ops and border police in Jenin. For the first time in 20 years, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) engaged military aviation in that region, which is indicative of a cardinal shift in tackling this issue. Meanwhile, representatives of the HAMAS Palestinian group called for stepping up armed resistance to Israel. Experts see a possibility that the situation may force Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to launch a more extensive operation.

According to a recent analysis by the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), the potential operation in the northern West Bank is important not just from the point of view of the Palestinian issue. The INSS notes that it will also damage Iran’s efforts toward undermining stability and security in the region and frustrate its strategy aimed at activating Palestine as yet another front against Israel.

Andrey Yashlavsky, an expert on religious terrorism and extremism and a senior researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Primakov Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO RAS), suggests that recent developments are capable of provoking a large-scale intervention by the IDF, noting that a number of Israeli officials have already openly called for such an operation. "Undoubtedly, in the event of a large-scale Israeli operation, another round of violence in the region will follow, with ensuing new bombings and terror attacks, including those perpetrated by lone-wolf terrorists, which will lead to revenge strikes." However, he does not see this as any different from previous rounds of escalation.

The expert notes that Israel’s actions will naturally trigger discontent at the international level, including by the US, which recently criticized Israel’s plans to increase the number of Jewish settlements on occupied territories, and by Arab countries, which long ago or only just recently mended ties with Israel. "The UN will urge a stop to the violence," he adds. However, according to Yashlavsky, Israel’s security forces have been regularly conducting raids in the West Bank since June 2021, and the issue concerns only how large of a scale such operations might entail.