MOSCOW, October 4. /TASS/. The US has enough stockpiled weapons remaining to keep feeding Ukraine’s voracious aid appetite until Congress passes a budget for the next fiscal year; Yerevan is downgrading its longstanding allied relations with Moscow; and Washington is seeking to normalize ties with Kabul. These stories topped Wednesday’s newspaper headlines across Russia.
Vedomosti: Enough arms left in US larder to keep Kiev aid flowing until new budget passed
The US Department of Defense (DoD) has stocks of military materiel worth $5.2 bln still at its disposal to send as aid to Ukraine, Vedomosti writes, citing The Wall Street Journal. This is what remains of the $43.7 bln that Washington has earmarked for security assistance to Kiev since military operations began in February 2022.
The Associated Press confirmed reports that the US is running low on money to replace those weapons that have already been provided to Ukraine, citing a letter that Pentagon Comptroller Michael McCord sent to congressional leaders. According to him, Washington has $5.4 bln left to provide weapons and equipment from its stockpiles.
On September 30, the US Congress passed a stopgap funding bill for the next 45 days, during which the lawmakers will need to approve a budget for the next fiscal year. While the Democrats had planned to tuck an additional $6.15 bln in aid for Ukraine into the bill, the Republicans blocked the initiative.
Certain delays in US financial and military assistance to Kiev may occur over the coming six weeks, but the odds are low that the aid spigot will be shut off altogether, Viktor Mizin, researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO RAS), pointed out. In the expert’s view, if the next fiscal year’s budget is approved in November, the administration of US President Joe Biden will be able to step up supplies of both weapons and financing for Kiev. "Ukraine remains a strategic project for the US, in which too much has already been invested, so Washington won’t give it up that easily," the analyst said.
American studies expert Alexander Domrin believes that the Republican-led US House of Representatives (lower house of Congress) may make some adjustments, in particular by demanding an oversight report on how the funds already appropriated have been spent. However, Biden has the opportunity to use his so-called "residual powers" to scrape up enough cash to keep the pipeline of support for Kiev flowing. "The support will continue for as long as Biden remains in office," Domrin concluded.
Media: Yerevan downgrades allied relations with Moscow with ICC accession
Armenia’s National Assembly (parliament) has ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), thus joining the court, which earlier issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights Maria Lvova-Belova. This marks the most striking step to date, though not the first and certainly not the last, that Yerevan has taken in pursuing a policy of distancing itself from Moscow. The document was ratified shortly before a European Political Community summit, in which Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan will also participate, Kommersant writes.
The ratification of the ICC’s Rome Statute is not the first move by Yerevan that Moscow has deemed unfriendly. In September, Armenia hosted joint military drills with the United States after refusing to host the Collective Security Treaty Organization’s (CSTO) exercises in January.
"This space is going through changes," Sergey Markedonov, senior researcher at the Center for Euro-Atlantic Security at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO University), noted. "This also includes the standoff between Israel and Iran, as well as Turkey’s ambitions. Moscow will now pay less attention to the Caucasus as Ukraine is currently a priority. However, Russia has border guards stationed in Armenia and a military base in Gyumri, and [Russian] peacekeepers are also still there. It’s not correct to say that it’s all over. The agenda is just getting more complicated," the expert explained.
Armenia’s goal in ratifying the ICC’s Rome Statute is to obtain additional leverage for putting pressure on Azerbaijan on the international stage, Doctor of Law Alexey Ispolinov told Vedomosti. In addition, ratification of the Rome Statute is usually one of the conditions for harmonizing a country’s legal rules with European norms and thus strengthening ties with the European Union.
Azerbaijan is not a party to the Rome Statute and, thus, it would be difficult to apply the ICC’s decisions to Baku, Stanislav Pritchin, an expert at the Center for Post-Soviet Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of World Economy and International Relations, pointed out. Meanwhile, the ICC issue creates a notable problem for Russian-Armenian relations because, by agreeing to accept the court’s decisions, Yerevan has in reality signed on to join a concerted campaign to ramp up pressure against Russia, the expert concluded.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Washington seeking to normalize ties with Kabul
The US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs is engulfed in debate over an old resolution titled Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) overseas, first passed in the early 2000s in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks. The administration of US President Joe Biden has made no secret of its readiness to remove Afghanistan’s Taliban movement (banned in Russia as a designated terrorist organization) from the list of potential targets under the AUMF, Nezavisimaya Gazeta writes.
The Taliban debate began amid discussions about the advisability of extending the AUMF, which the Biden administration had initially sought to repeal. While some lawmakers would like to preserve the status quo, others are ready to make compromises and revise the old rules. It is difficult to say how the White House’s readiness to take the Taliban off the list of potential targets would affect relations between Washington and Kabul as the two countries have been locked in a lingering confrontation since the chaotic evacuation of US troops from Afghanistan in 2021.
Omar Nessar, a researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Asian Studies, pointed out that the US remains a hostile actor for Taliban strategists, at least in the public field. "In any case, this is how Taliban leaders describe the US," the expert noted. "Still, the Taliban depends on the US financially more than on any other country," he added. According to Nessar, Taliban officials do not deny that the diplomatic recognition of the Kabul regime depends entirely on Washington. "That said, the Taliban are interested in building relations with Washington," the expert concluded.
International relations expert Vladimir Frolov noted, in turn, that the viability of the old AUMF had been subject to debate in the US for quite a while. "The idea has some support among both Democrats and Republicans, for various reasons," the analyst said. According to him, the Taliban may be removed from the list of potential targets precisely because the movement is inclined to cooperate with the CIA in the fight against the Afghan branch of the Islamic State.
Izvestia: EU trying to keep technologies away from China
EU officials in Brussels have issued a list of critical technologies that the European Union views as representing the highest risk in terms of Europe’s dependence on external players and the possibility of their falling into the hands of countries that could use them for military purposes and violating human rights. However, Brussels did not have the courage to openly say that it has China in mind, while the recently presented European Economic Security Strategy is mostly aimed at reducing the risks of cooperation with Beijing, Izvestia writes.
The European Union is not the first to restrict cooperation with China in the high-tech field. The US, which has always been in the sanctions forefront, banned the export of high-performance computing chips, equipment for their production and certain semiconductor technologies to China about a year ago. Beijing considers these practices to be an attempt to suppress its technological development, calling it a deviation from the principles of fair competition and highlighting its right to take reciprocal measures. In particular, China recently restricted the export of rare earth metals Gallium and Germanium as a retaliatory measure.
"China has quite a wide range of retaliation tools. Let’s take the trade war between the US and China: In this case, Beijing introduced export controls in response to US steps and significantly restricted imports and exports to and from the US, redirecting value-added chains to Southeast Asia, Eurasia and Latin America," Alexander Korolyov, deputy director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the Higher School of Economics (HSE University), noted. There is every reason to believe that, despite trade and economic interconnections between China and the EU, Beijing will respond by restricting the export of critical semiconductors that the Europeans have been actively buying in China, the expert emphasized.
Russian International Affairs Council Program Director Yulia Melnikova believes that, even though China still firmly hopes to improve relations with Europe, it will definitely respond to steps such as potential export controls on technologies. If retaliatory measures are taken, they will most likely target critical rare earth metals that European industries need, particularly for implementing ambitious green transition plans, the analyst concluded.
Vedomosti: Russian pipeline gas supplies to EU remain at highest possible level
Liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies to Europe have been declining for three consecutive months. Meanwhile, Russian pipeline gas supplies actually remained at the August level in September, Vedomosti writes, citing calculations based on data from gas giant Gazprom and the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Gas (ENTSOG).
Experts attribute the drop in LNG exports to the EU to the high level of gas in underground storage facilities. In mid-August, gas stocks exceeded 90% of the total capacity of the facilities, while the EU had planned to reach that level by November 1. Finam Financial Group analyst Sergey Kaufman points out that, in September, the level of gas in underground storage sites reached 100% in some EU countries that are major LNG importers.
Ronald Smith, a senior analyst at BCS World of Investments, expects that LNG imports will start to grow again once the winter heating season kicks off. "The timing will depend on when the cold weather sets in. The heating season usually begins in the second half of October, but it may be delayed as far as late November," he explained.
According to Finam’s forecast, the redirection of LNG exports from the Asian market to the European one will start in November. However, gas supplies will be restored to the record levels recorded in the spring of 2023 only in case of a cold winter in Europe, Kaufman said.
Russian pipeline gas supplies, in his words, are mostly directed towards Central and Southern European countries, which either do not import LNG at all or "rely on it less." Smith adds that Russian gas prices in the European market are quite competitive at the moment, while they remained higher than spot rates for most of the first six months of the year.
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