MOSCOW, May 3. /TASS/. EU struggling to formulate common stance on China and Russia; participants in Black Sea grain deal to meet for talks on extension later today; and Ukrainian armed forces set to receive supplies of ammunition from Israel and South Korea. These stories topped Wednesday’s newspaper headlines across Russia.

 

Izvestia: EU struggling to formulate common stance on China, Russia

At a recent meeting in Luxembourg, the EU foreign ministers failed to agree on additional anti-Russian sanctions, nor could they find common ground on China. While the bloc’s diplomacy chief, Josep Borrell, proposed sending patrol vessels to the Taiwan Strait, a number of European countries are reluctant to exacerbate relations with Beijing.

In response to Borrell’s proposal, Zhu Fenglian, spokesperson of the information bureau at the Taiwan Affairs Office of China’s State Council, warned that Beijing was on high alert and keeping a vigilant eye out for any actions that could impair the country’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity.

According to Borrell, a document is currently being drafted for an EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Sweden outlining a renewed strategy for relations between the bloc and China. Commenting on the recent failure in Luxembourg to formulate a common stance on China, he noted that although there were many people who do not want to take sides, they must take a stance.

Sergey Fyodorov, lead researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Europe, told Izvestia that French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent visit to Beijing testified to the deep rift in Europe over China and the current situation. While Brussels may rebuke Beijing for authoritarianism and infringing on human rights, at the same time the EU is loath to lose the Chinese market and has thus been trying to curb its criticism of China, the political analyst said. "Europe has the same strong interest in the Chinese market as the Chinese have in the European market," he contended.

Commenting on the EU’s failure to reach a consensus on an 11th package of anti-Russian sanctions, Yekaterina Entina, associate professor at the Higher School of Economics (HSE University) and senior researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Europe, told Izvestia that the mechanism for promoting sanctions was worked out last year, noting that this involved both decision-making on the imposition of restrictions and the acceptance of the resulting sanctions regime by the general public. "In my opinion, the key task was not so much to deal a blow to the Russian economy, but rather to establish a mechanism for coordinating the sanctions clearly as well as for how they were to be applied by unfriendly nations within" the EU itself, Entina explained, adding that they have succeeded in that task.

 

Vedomosti: Parties to Black Sea grain deal to meet Wednesday for talks on extension

Participants in a new round of negotiations on an extension of the Black Sea grain initiative, including the UN, Russia, Ukraine and Turkey, will discuss agricultural exports from southern Ukrainian ports in exchange for the lifting of restrictions on Russian agricultural exports later on Wednesday, Vedomosti said in the early hours on May 3. Later today, the newspaper quoted Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar as telling CNN Turk that grain deal discussions will be held on May 5. The meeting will be attended by "all parties," Reuters reported on May 2, citing sources. The relevant grain deal agreements, which were extended in March for 60 days only at Moscow’s request, are set to expire on May 18.

On Sunday, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said in an interview with Haberturk TV that trilateral talks on the grain deal would be held at the deputy ministerial level "in the next few days." The meeting has not been officially announced yet, however, by the foreign ministries of Russia, Turkey or Ukraine. Vedomosti has submitted a relevant information request to the UN Secretariat, as well as to the Russian and Turkish foreign ministries.

Experts said restoring Russian ammonia exports via Ukraine would be the thorniest issue. If a solution can be found to that sticking point, the grain deal overall will stand a chance of being extended, Viktor Nadein-Rayevsky, senior researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of World Economy and International Relations, told Vedomosti. "But Kiev is resisting thus far, while Ankara does not have enough leverage to put pressure on [Ukraine] regarding the ammonia pipeline, even though it has been showing readiness to contribute to resolving the issue," he said. Meanwhile, Russia has not benefited from the initiative in its current format, and thus it makes no sense for Moscow to approve extending this iteration of the deal, the expert argues.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s statements about his readiness to assist in the restoration of the ammonia pipeline are no accident, since Ankara is one of the main beneficiaries of the grain deal, as it has allowed Turkey to bolster its positions in global politics, said political analyst Yashar Niyazbayev. "The deal has a positive effect on the country’s image, especially in Africa, with which it has been expanding economic ties rapidly," he explained. In addition, any consensus on the grain deal would highlight Ankara’s independence within NATO.

Eduard Zernin, president of the Russian Union of Grain Exporters, agrees, saying: "Turkish consumers may be hard hit if the negotiations were to collapse."

 

Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Ukrainian troops to receive Israeli, South Korean ammunition

Ukrainian Defense Minister Alexey Reznikov’s recent remarks about the country’s readiness for a counteroffensive came amid intensified Ukrainian sabotage and attacks on critical facilities deep inside Russia. Washington and its NATO allies are set to continue providing military assistance to Ukraine’s armed forces.

The British Ministry of Defense recently published a request on its website for the procurement of long-range missiles for Ukraine. Kiev would be able to use such weapons to hit the Kerch Bridge to Crimea and attack important strategic targets deep within Russian territory, not to mention targets in the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, as well as in the Lugansk and Donetsk people’s republics and in Crimea. Thus far, Kiev has been relying on unmanned aerial vehicles to conduct attacks as well as on recruiting saboteurs to carry out terror attacks inside Russia. Attacks and acts of terrorism may intensify once Ukrainian forces obtain long-range missiles.

Meanwhile, an Israeli TV channel reported that the United States has been sending munitions meant for the Israel Defense Forces to Ukraine from Israeli military depots. According to media reports, such munitions are currently being loaded on vessels in an Israeli port. On Friday, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol announced that Seoul may also provide military support to Ukraine. Moreover, Seoul may have already done so, as Reuters reported last month that South Korea had agreed to lend 500,000 rounds of 155mm artillery shells to the US. The news agency did not say how many of those had already been supplied to Ukraine, but deliveries are seemingly underway.

In its latest update on Monday, British intelligence described the defenses built up by Russia as some of the most extensive seen in any country around the world in decades. "We have never seen a Ukrainian offensive against such fortified Russian positions before. Counteroffensives previously were conducted against weakened and dispersed Russian troops. Today, the situation is quite different," an expert at ETH Zurich warned.

 

Nezavisimaya Gazeta: IMF acknowledges that position of US dollar is slipping

Washington has put the US dollar’s role as the global reserve currency at risk. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has acknowledged that the role of the dollar as the reserve currency has weakened. However, the IMF is not yet calling this a problem. Meanwhile, experts at Bloomberg suggested that Russia may resume buying the Chinese yuan for its National Wealth Fund later this month, having proven its ability to keep the inflow of oil dollars intact, in spite of sanctions.

Alexander Bakhtin, an investment strategist at BCS World of Investments, said that the share of the greenback in foreign exchange reserves is currently the lowest seen in the past 27 years. The drop comes amid the decision by central banks to keep part of their reserves in non-reserve currencies, not even in the yuan, Natalia Milchakova, lead analyst at Freedom Finance Global, explains.

"Of course, the role of the Chinese currency in the global economy will gradually grow, as increasingly more countries will seek to have this currency in their reserves," Artyom Lyukshin, associate professor in the Department of Public and Municipal Finance at Russia’s Plekhanov University of Economics, told Nezavisimaya Gazeta. "The Indian rupee should not be discounted in the long run either, as the outlook for the Indian economy is quite promising. The Russian ruble could also play a bigger role in the global economy through the use of national currencies in transactions with friendly countries," he added.

To his colleague Mikhail Gordiyenko, the reduced amount of US sovereign debt held not only by Russia, but also by China, Turkey, Brazil and some other economies, is yet another confirmation of a crisis of confidence in the US financial system, which he described as a stable, long-term trend.

However, some experts doubt that the global role of the US dollar will weaken significantly. Andrey Maslov, an analyst at Finam, is confident that the US currency remains "the key defensive asset," while Artyom Tuzov, director of the Capital Markets Department at Iva Partners, says the West has enough allies that must keep their foreign exchange reserves either in the dollar or in the euro, so he does not expect the role of the USD in the make-up of international reserves to see any further slippage.

 

Kommersant: Russia sees 10% drop in gas production in first quarter

According to data obtained by Kommersant, in January-March Russian gas output declined by 10% compared to the first three months of last year, to 180 billion cubic meters, and the country saw a 10% drop in its gas production in March, down to 61 billion cubic meters. Production by state-owned Russian gas giant Gazprom continues to fall amid reduced exports to the EU, while gas output by the country’s largest independent producers, Rosneft and Novatek, has been on the rise. Analysts say this trend will continue into later this year.

The market is watching the situation with Gazprom’s output and exports ahead of the coming preparations in the EU for the next heating season. So far, gas prices remain relatively low, and Gazprom cannot actually increase gas supplies to European countries, with the Nord Stream pipelines having been blown up and the Yamal-Europe pipeline being affected by Russian retaliatory sanctions.

Sergey Kondratyev, an expert at the Institute of Energy and Finance Foundation, sees an unusual situation in the market, wherein, amid a sharp decline in pipeline exports and weak domestic demand, natural gas production by independent producers continues to grow. He noted that in 2023, in general, Rosneft's gas output may exceed 85 billion cubic meters, while Novatek will slightly increase its production to 83-84 billion cubic meters.

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