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Top stories from the Russian press on Wednesday, June 28th, prepared by TASS

Pope Francis’ peace envoy is en route to Moscow to discuss Ukraine settlement options; Kiev sees grounds for speeding up its NATO membership bid, but the alliance is hesitant to go all the way; and Moscow and Tehran agree to join forces in fighting crime. These stories topped Wednesday’s newspaper headlines across Russia.

Vedomosti: Pope Francis’ peace envoy en route to Moscow for Ukraine settlement discussions

Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, president of the Italian Episcopal Conference, will visit Moscow on June 28-29 in an effort to identify paths for achieving peace in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. He has prior mediation experience, having assisted in reaching a peace settlement to Mozambique’s 17-year civil war. On June 5-6, Zuppi traveled to Kiev, where his brief was to hear out the Ukrainian authorities’ views on potential avenues toward achieving peace. However, there have been no reports about the specific outcome of the papal envoy’s mission to Ukraine, Vedomosti writes.

A source in the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) told Vedomosti that Cardinal Zuppi’s visit was initiated by Leonid Sevastyanov, chairman of the World Union of Old Believers, who maintains contacts with the Roman Catholic church hierarchy. Sevastyanov himself confirmed to the newspaper that he was providing assistance in organizing Zuppi’s itinerary, at least in arranging a meeting with ROC Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia. According to Sevastyanov, the goal of Zuppi’s mission is to "explain the pope’s position to the conflicting parties and convey their positions to each other."

The move to send an experienced diplomat like Zuppi on this mission shows the importance of this issue for the Vatican, as well as the complexity of the crisis, said Yekaterina Shibalina, a researcher with the European Studies Center at the Institute for International Studies at Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO University). "The pope’s policy regarding the crisis, which started off in 2022 with bold attempts to unilaterally resolve everything at once, has since given way to an understanding of the complexity of the problem," Shibalina pointed out. "The Vatican is hardly expecting a breakthrough," she added. However, given the failure of other mediators, the pope will try to make at least small but specific achievements and agreements in the humanitarian field. "This is how the Vatican would assert its authority as an arbiter," the expert noted.

Judging by media comments, Zuppi’s mission to Kiev ended with nothing, said Oleg Barabanov, program director at the Valdai International Discussion Club. Serious results can hardly be expected from his visit to Russia, the expert added. However, the important thing here is the very fact that more and more countries are joining the peace process, engaging in "shuttle diplomacy" between Moscow and Kiev. Zuppi’s experience in conducting talks in the Mozambique conflict is a plus for his mission, but there is no one-size-fits-all way to resolve conflicts, Barabanov concluded.

Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Kiev sees grounds for fast-tracking NATO membership but bloc hesitant

Ukrainian public organizations have called upon NATO leaders to invite the country to join the bloc at its summit slated to be held in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius on July 11-12. It is within the realm of possibility that the North Atlantic Alliance will extend an open-ended invitation to Ukraine at the gathering. However, it is much more likely that the alliance will limit its overtures to Kiev to establishing a NATO-Ukraine Council and promises of a formal invitation at a future date, experts interviewed by Nezavisimaya Gazeta said.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said on Tuesday that there was every reason to take decisive steps toward furthering Ukraine’s NATO membership ambitions. However, he did not clarify what specific grounds might facilitate new decisions on the matter.

In the meantime, it is clear that NATO member states would like to limit themselves to the establishment of a NATO-Ukraine Council as a framework for future cooperation, particularly in terms of military aid, said Yevgeny Semibratov, deputy director of the Institute for Strategic Studies and Forecast at the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN). However, according to him, the Ukrainian presidential office can see that the country is getting tired of military activities and Ukrainian society is beginning to realize that the much-hyped counteroffensive has failed to achieve any major successes, even while losses of manpower and equipment have been colossal.

"In such a situation, it’s vital for Kiev to make some political achievements. Getting invited to join NATO would look like such an achievement. It would be important both for the domestic political situation and efforts to prevent an expected decline in foreign military support for Kiev," the expert noted. "It’s possible that Kiev will receive an invitation with an open date at the Vilnius meeting. Still, it’s more likely that Brussels will try to avoid doing that, realizing that such steps multiply the risk of a global military conflict with Russia. Especially since NATO’s founding documents don’t allow countries involved in territorial disputes to become members," Semibratov emphasized.

Vedomosti: Moscow, Tehran to join forces in fighting crime

On June 27, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev received Ahmad-Reza Radan, head of Iran’s Law Enforcement Command. According to the Iranian embassy in Moscow, the goal of the Iranian official’s visit, which took place at Russia’s invitation, was to sign a memorandum of law enforcement cooperation. Radan highlighted Iran’s readiness to share its experience in combating drug trafficking, terrorism and organized smuggling, Vedomosti writes.

It is Iran that is more interested in expanding law enforcement cooperation with Russia, said Russian International Affairs Council expert Kirill Semenov. "Moscow has a rather strong counter-intelligence network. This is why the Iranians seek to share experience with Russia as part of efforts to counter the so-called color revolutions," the expert explained.

Semenov pointed out that anti-government protests, sparked by a female student’s death, presumably at the hands of the morality police, have been occurring occasionally in Iran since late last year. "Such cooperation is, to a certain extent, in line with Russia’s interests, too, given the Iranian authorities’ experience in curbing threats to domestic political security," the expert added.

Bilateral security cooperation grew significantly in the past year-and-a-half, Iran expert Nikita Smagin noted. That said, the Iranian police chief’s visit to Russia looks like a logical continuation of the trend.

However, in Smagin’s words, the visit was more likely to have been planned well in advance rather than in the immediate aftermath of the recent attempted armed mutiny in Russia. Moreover, the expert was skeptical of the idea that Tehran could somehow assist Moscow in dealing with security threats, calling it misplaced.

Kommersant: China signals readiness to further reinforce strategic partnership with Russia

The Eighth International Conference "Russia and China: Cooperation in a New Era" has kicked off in Beijing. The foreign ministers of Russia and China, Sergey Lavrov and Qin Gang, sent their respective greetings and messages to the attendees. Notably, the forum is taking place right after an attempted armed mutiny was defused in Russia. As the Chinese Foreign Ministry wished Russia "to maintain state stability and achieve development and prosperity," Beijing reaffirmed its readiness to boost cooperation with Moscow, Kommersant notes.

The conference, launched by the Russian International Affairs Council and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 2015, remains the main platform for Russian and Chinese experts to assess bilateral cooperation amid external challenges and the current global geopolitical situation. This time, the conference is being held against the background of a force majeure situation. The attempt by the Wagner Private Military Company (PMC) to stage an armed mutiny prompted politicians, diplomats and experts around the world to evaluate a new set of risks stemming from the threat of domestic instability within Russia. Special attention is being focused on Beijing’s reaction to what transpired in Russia, given that China has ultimately turned into the main source of support for Moscow amid its conflict with the West.

"Chinese social media users watched the mutiny attempt with curiosity. Naturally, they are approaching their analysis of the events with their own yardsticks and are looking at the situation from a Chinese perspective. Mutinies have been rather common in Chinese history, as this is how almost all ruling dynasties came to power. According to Chinese tradition, a mutineer must either become a ruler or be eliminated," said Alexey Maslov, director of Moscow State University’s Institute of Asian and African Studies.

Given that the Beijing conference began already after the denouement of the Wagner PMC crisis, its participants needed to send a signal that relations between the two countries remain unaffected by domestic political developments and continue to gather pace amid increasing external challenges.

Izvestia: EU barriers to Russian oil imports jeopardize Europe’s own energy security

Although the European Union has finally adopted its 11th package of anti-Russian sanctions, the latest restrictions are unlikely to have an immediate impact, Russian Acting Permanent Representative to the EU Kirill Logvinov told Izvestia. However, according to the diplomat, Brussels will continue to wage its economic war against Moscow, despite the fact that the 27 EU member states are finding it more and more difficult to reach compromises among themselves vis-·-vis dealing with Russia.

According to the European Commission, the 11th package of sanctions will provide for more effective implementation of restrictions based on the lessons learned over the past year, the diplomat explained. "However, the main lesson, which was initially clear to everyone but the European Union, is that no one in the world was ready to mindlessly join the EU’s illegal restrictions and wind down their trade and economic ties with Russia. This is why, as expected, the focus now is on tightening control over third countries’ compliance with the existing restrictions," Logvinov pointed out.

"A tool for combatting the bypassing of sanctions is even included in the package, but no concrete details have been provided as to what exactly it entails. I believe this was done on purpose as the goal is to send some kind of a warning signal to third countries," the acting envoy went on to say. According to him, the mechanism "clearly looks like an illegal measure in terms of international law because it actually serves to legitimize the extraterritorial nature of the EU’s policy of sanctions, which it had previously denied."

The obstacles to getting Russian petroleum products to world markets that the EU is building as part of its 11th package of sanctions will only serve to jeopardize the energy security of the European countries themselves, Logvinov stressed. "Apart from causing a rise in oil product prices on the European Union market, these bans may also harm those EU countries that have traditionally benefitted from maritime freight forwarding services," he explained.

Logvinov also emphasized that Brussels was pushing European countries to take measures that "run counter to their national economic interests," primarily by scaling down economic cooperation with Russia. And, yet, the EU simultaneously expects these countries to continue providing resources to support Ukraine.