Vedomosti: Why the West is reluctant to see de-escalation over Ukraine

The much-hyped Russian ‘invasion of Ukraine‘ that the Western media was predicting to happen on February 15-16 still has not taken place. However, the media crusade against Moscow has failed to subside, Vedomosti notes.

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said at his meeting with President Vladimir Putin on February 14 that the country’s armed forces were about to complete military drills and would gradually be withdrawn from Ukraine’s border but the West did not believe it. The US authorities remain convinced that Russia may attack Ukraine within a week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated.

It’s not that Ukraine's Western allies have claimed a moral victory by getting Russia to pull back, Russian International Affairs Council expert Alexander Yermakov noted. But what unites the West is the desire to continue maintaining the impression of the threat of a Russian invasion for a while longer. As for the perception that Russia has never had and does not have plans to attack Ukraine, mainstream media outlets in the US and other NATO countries aren’t covering that at all, he emphasized.

The US authorities clearly aren’t interested in resolving the conflict in Ukraine, Director of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Foundation for United States Studies at Moscow State University Yury Rogulev pointed out. It would have been possible to see some benefits from US President Joe Biden’s statements had he managed to avoid using both peaceful rhetoric and threats in the same speech, the expert explained. The Americans continue to speak from the position of force, which means that there hasn’t been a shift towards an easing of tensions, Rogulev noted. The United States’ reluctance to put pressure on Kiev to make it implement the Minsk Agreements, which would be the best option, also is not encouraging.

 

Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Bolsonaro’s Moscow visit benefits both Russia, Brazil

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro paid a visit to Moscow for talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin despite opposition from the United States. The two countries’ foreign and defense ministers held their first 2+2 meeting. Bolsonaro’s visit is important from a political perspective as the Brazilian president seeks to make voters see that he does not depend on the US much, Nezavisimaya Gazeta notes.

"Economic ties are quite simple: Russia buys a lot of meat from Brazil, while the latter purchases potash fertilizers," Chief Researcher with the Center for Latin American Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of World History Andrey Shchelchkov noted. According to him, the visit is important for the Brazilian president in the run-up to the fall elections. "The situation does not favor Bolsonaro since he will probably lose to Lula da Silva whose trump card is pursuing a policy independent from the US. That said, Bolsonaro wants to demonstrate that he too does not depend on Washington," Shchelchkov assumed.

Relations between Russia and Brazil are on the rise at the moment, Head of the Department of European and American Studies at Moscow State Institute of International Relations Lyudmila Okuneva pointed out. "Defense cooperation has been a tradition. Senior defense ministry officials representing all branches of military forces (ground troops, naval and air forces) exchanged visits in the three years of Bolsonaro’s presidential term," the expert specified.

"Cooperation with Brazil, our strategic partner in Latin America, is definitely in line with Russia’s national interests. I believe that it should be based on pragmatic grounds free of ideology, with differences in positions left aside and a focus on the areas where views are similar or the same, as well as on opportunities for progress in our bilateral relations," Okuneva emphasized.

 

Rossiyskaya Gazeta: What awaits Russia’s ruble in the near future

The Russian ruble’s exchange rate no longer depends on oil prices and other factors, with the exception of geopolitics. Political uncertainty makes it hard to predict rate changes. However, it doesn’t mean that the Russian currency is bound to weaken, Rossiyskaya Gazeta writes.

From a macroeconomic standpoint, the ruble is designed to strengthen based on multi-year peaks in commodity prices and high key rates. However, geopolitical tensions are causing an outflow of capital from Russian assets, preventing the ruble from getting stronger, while tightening monetary policies in the US and the EU favor the dollar and the euro, Sovcombank Chief Analyst Mikhail Vasilyev emphasized.

"The oil market is supporting the ruble, gas prices are also rising, OPEC is conservatively increasing oil output, but even the current level is not always maintained. The energy crisis receded a bit, but it is still there and a complete economic reopening may produce a multitude of strange surprises amid the pandemic-induced gaps in production chains. In addition, the record high level of Russia’s gold and currency reserves and the Central Bank’s rising key rate also speak for the ruble," Director of BCS World of Investment’s regional network for high-end clients Grigory Sosnovsky noted.

The currency market remains sensitive to geopolitical news, which may lead to sharp fluctuations in the ruble’s rate, Vasilyev said. According to his estimates, the Russian currency will remain at the 74-79 level against the dollar and at 84-89 against the euro this spring. If geopolitical tensions ease, the Russian currency may return to the 72-75 mark by the spring, Sosnovsky added.

 

Izvestia: Countries up against rising prices amid commodity shortages​​​​​​​

Most countries have no idea how to deal with rising prices. Central Banks are taking key rates up in a bid to contain accelerating inflation. However, monetary policy no longer can help resolve the issue of mounting prices rooted in commodity shortages. Various industries - from non-ferrous metals to food production - have been affected by the shortages, Izvestia notes.

According to Expert RA Chief Economist Anton Tabakh, there are different views on the causes of the current crisis, which range from stock management deadlocks caused by lean management (the pursuit of quick delivery of components without using warehouses in order to save time and money, aimed at dramatically reducing stocks, has been a trend for the past 20 years or so) to systemic shortages of raw materials and labor.

Nikolay Pereslavsky from the Department of Economic and Financial Research at the CMS Institute points out that a whole set of problems has emerged in production chains. "The logistics collapse in China is ongoing and may flare up again if port employees start contracting the Omicron coronavirus variant. At the same time, global producers of metal-based goods, from microchips to aircraft and automobiles, still have issues dealing with the supply disruptions they faced in 2020. Given the planned increase in production, the market deficit may rise even more," he said.

As for inflation, which has been growing because of increasing prices for various goods, it was clear from the start that the price hikes were going to hold on for long, the expert noted. First, the supply disruptions and an imbalance between supply and demand in some industries were too severe. Second, efforts to pump the market with money led to an increase in consumption and surging prices stimulated by rising demand. However, inflation rates are expected to start falling in the second half of the year as the low base effect, which will pressure the economy in the first six months, will vanish.

 

Rossiyskaya Gazeta: Pandemic may bring changes to labor market

The rise in real wages in Russia will outpace the GDP in 2022, experts from the Financial University under the Russian Government predict. Rising demand for qualified personnel will be the main labor market driver but the market may change once the coronavirus pandemic is over, Rossiyskaya Gazeta writes.

Pavel Seleznev, First Deputy Head of the Department of Social Sciences and Mass Communication and Professor of the Political Science Department at the Financial University under the Russian Government, believes that communication technologies, particularly those used for remote communication, have become incredibly popular recently.

When speaking about the impact that the Internet and artificial intelligence technologies may have on the employment structure, the expert pointed out that it would hardly see major changes in the coming years. "For at least ten years, I have been hearing talk that occupations such as couriers, contact center employees and accountants are going to disappear. However, contact center employees and accountants are still in demand on the labor market and experiments involving robot accountants and lawyers often end in failure and financial losses, while the demand for couriers, for instance, is only growing," Seleznev added.

According to him, the pandemic stepped up the process of moving communications to the Internet but it would be wrong to say that telecommuting will become a global trend. As of today, the share of remote workers in Russian businesses does not exceed ten percent. An additional one-third of employees work both in the office and remotely. However, telecommuting will not prevail because telecommuting cannot be applied to many occupations, the expert stressed.

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