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Press review: Israel evacuates White Helmets and Kosovo visa liberalization may doom EU

Top stories in the Russian press on Monday, July 23

 

Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Damascus gets rid of White Helmets in southern Syria

The strategy of Russia and Syria is bearing fruit. Thanks to recent agreements reached at the historic summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump in Helsinki, Damascus has gotten rid of the White Helmets, an anti-Assad group backed by the US in southwestern Syria, Nezavisimaya Gazeta writes.

At the request of the US, Canada and some European states, Israel has evacuated nearly 800 members of the White Helmets from Syria. Russia’s Defense and Foreign Ministries have accused this NGO of being terrorist accomplices.

Now, the White Helmets has disappeared from the so-called Southern front. Given that the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad are gaining the upper hand, this confirms that both Syria and Russia triumphed, the paper says. Moreover, the US is allegedly curtailing its presence in Syria. The question is whether Assad or Moscow will fill the vacuum left there. A possible US departure from Syria does not mean that Washington will lose its influence in the country. The coalition will be joined by Arab countries and NATO’s European members, according to the paper.

Moscow and Ankara are bargaining over putting Aleppo under Turkish control. The talks "will allow Turkey to get control of the Hama, Idlib and Aleppo provinces in exchange for the return of more than 3 million Syrians from Turkey and Europe," according to the Yeni Shafak newspaper.

Meanwhile, recent news reports that Russia’s air base in Syria had come under fire are alarming, Russian military expert Col. Vladimir Popov said.

 

Izvestia: Visa liberalization for Kosovo will spell disaster for EU security

The European Commission declared last week that the self-proclaimed Kosovo Republic had complied with their key demands for lifting visa requirements for its citizens. Visa liberalization between the European Union and Kosovo would trigger the destabilization of the Balkans, two high-ranking sources within the government of Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina warned, according to Izvestia.

"Everyone knows what is going on in this region - terrorism, drug dealing and organ trafficking - organized crime is widespread there. Europe may be seriously affected by this. When a visa system is in place, there is control. Relevant agencies monitor who crosses the border and who does not. It’s absolutely unclear what’s behind the conclusions that Kosovo meets the criteria," a source in the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina told the paper.

Kosovo is a leading ‘exporter’ of terrorists from Europe to the Middle East, Serbian MP Alexander Seselj said. "It’s hard to believe that Kosovo will get a visa-free regime soon. If this still happens, we will witness a situation when political interests exceed and harm security interests," Seselj stressed.

The key goal of the EU’s visa liberalization policy for Kosovo is to exert influence on Serbia, one of Montenegro’s opposition leaders Milan Knezevic said. "The EU wants Belgrade to recognize Kosovo as an independent state. Meanwhile, the Kosovo "state" has essentially turned into a terrorist entity sending militants to the Middle East and other regions."

According to the politician, another reason for the move is the EU plans to resolve the migration crisis. Given that Poland and Hungary adamantly refuse to host migrants, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and the so-called Kosovo Republic may become the new centers for receiving migrants, he explained.

 

Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Russian military technology may defend Qatar’s World Cup

Qatar is bracing for a mounting blockade by its neighbors in the region as the 2022 FIFA World Cup in the country approaches, a source in the emirate’s Foreign Ministry told Nezavisimaya Gazeta. Doha has been recently accused of meddling in Bahrain’s affairs. Pressure on the Qatari government has not let up since 2017, when Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt announced their blockade.

"But I can say with confidence that Qatar is ready to host the World Cup and a lot has been done for this championship to become the best," the diplomatic source stated. "Investments are being poured into (the country’s) infrastructure, and I can say that we are becoming more open."

The source noted that the states, which declared the boycott last year, are also fighting against Qatar through international judicial bodies. The Persian Gulf nations have announced plans to petition the International Criminal Court to close the air space over Qatar.

Amid strained relations with its neighbors, Doha is in talks on buying Russian weapons, and the first contracts have been already signed, Russia’s Ambassador to Qatar Nurmakhmad Kholov said.

The Russian envoy confirmed that the surrounding regional states are trying to stonewall defense cooperation between Moscow and Doha. The blockade of Qatar sparked a serious impetus to cultivating bilateral ties between Russia and the emirate, he noted.

 

Kommersant: WTO backs Russia in fertilizer feud with Ukraine

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has sided with Russia in its dispute with Ukraine over Kiev’s anti-dumping measures imposed in 2014 on Russian ammonium nitrate used as fertilizer, Kommersant writes. The WTO’s panel noted that Ukraine was also wrong when adjusting prices for Russian gas. Kiev borrowed these tactics from the EU, which used it on a large scale to fight Russia’s imports. However, lawyers say the ruling should not create a precedent and entail a widespread cancellation of anti-dumping measures.

Before the Ukrainian conflict, Russia had accounted for nearly 90% of the local market of nitrogen fertilizers and consumers opposed the restrictions, Kommersant writes. Later, Kiev consistently blocked such imports. In March 2018, Kiev vowed to impose a full embargo on imports of Russian fertilizers and again increased anti-dumping duties for ammonium nitrate to 29-43%. The fertilizer company, EuroChem, decided to sell its subsidiary in Ukraine and leave the market, condemning the moves by local authorities.

Now, EuroChem notes that the WTO’s stance confirms that Ukraine illegally used trade restrictions against the company. However, the producer said it was too early to speak about resuming its supplies to Ukraine since the ruling may be appealed.

Russia’s Economy Ministry stressed, "this is Russia’s first victory in the WTO."

 

Media: CIA sees China as greater threat than Russia

Recent opinion polls show that Americans view Russia as a key security threat for the United States, Kommersant writes. This was announced at the 2018 Aspen Security Forum. After the Helsinki summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump the participants focused on Moscow and Russian-US relations, but agreed with the conclusions by the US intelligence community that in the long run Washington’s key threat will come from China. Michael Collins, deputy assistant director of the CIA's East Asia mission center, said, "what they're waging against us is fundamentally a cold war."

Do the Americans have grounds to worry? Alexander Lomanov, Chief Research Fellow at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Far Eastern Studies, told Nezavisimaya Gazeta that in 2030-2035 China is set to become the world’s number one economy. "It’s clear that this will influence both politics and military affairs. However, China constantly stresses that there is no reason to worry about its rise. It won’t choose the way of imperialist powers of the 19th and 20th centuries. China won’t engage in territorial expansion, but will comply with certain rules," Lomanov pointed out.

US political scientist Graham Allison warns that China and America may get into the Thucydides trap, the paper says. The Athenian historian, who wrote about the Peloponnesian War, said wars start not due to a real threat but over the fear of a rising neighbor. China has to convince the US that it is not a threat and America should understand that the fear of losing its global influence should not create a potential for a military conflict.

This problem is becoming very serious now given Trump’s careless politics, Lomanov noted.

 

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