MOSCOW, November 20. /TASS/. Russian wheat exports have something in store for the global market; Israel’s envoy doubled down on the country’s commitment to destroy Hamas; and the EU plans to eschew Russian diamond imports. These stories topped Monday’s newspaper headlines across Russia.

 

Nezavisimaya Gazeta: What to expect from Russian wheat going forward

Global food prices, particularly grain, are steadily declining, even though risks related to grain transportation from Ukraine are rising due to military incidents involving cargo ships. Grain prices will remain skittish into next year, said experts interviewed by Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

Grain is becoming cheaper as part of an overall downward trend in the price of all food commodities. Meanwhile, experts expect that of all agricultural goods, wheat will face the most uncertainty in 2024. According to Rabobank, dry weather in Argentina and Australia may reduce crop yields, while the conflict in Ukraine may lead to a decline in the country’s grain exports. The world will become even more dependent on Russian crops, the bank’s experts point out.

In the meantime, the Russian Grain Union said that the country’s grain exports had dropped by 15% on October 1-30 compared to the same period last year. The Rusagrotrans company’s analysts say that low wheat prices are the main reason behind declining exports.

However, exporters are still interested in Russian wheat, as seen from the increasing volume of sales contracts, analysts noted. Rising demand and decreasing supply are expected to stabilize prices after a long period of decline on the domestic market, the Sovecon company said.

Kirill Yermolenko, head of the Yermolenko livestock company, stressed that Russian exports had influenced prices in the past and their impact would only grow in the future.

 

Izvestia: Envoy reiterates Israel’s determination to eliminate Hamas

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) will continue its operation in the Gaza Strip until Hamas is completely eliminated and all hostages are free, Israeli Ambassador to Russia Alexander Ben Zvi said in an interview with Izvestia.

"There will be a ceasefire once we destroy Hamas’s infrastructure," the envoy stressed, adding that "humanitarian corridors have already been established."

When asked what Hamas hoped to achieve with its attack on October 7 and if it could have been aimed at provoking Israel in order to damage its reputation internationally, Ben Zvi noted that "they say they want to kill as many Israeli citizens as possible and take as many hostages as possible." "Their spokesman says that more operations like the one on October 7 are necessary as they must destroy the state of Israel. This is their goal," the diplomat added.

Another goal could have been "to throw the Middle East into disarray and sabotage what could have been with the Abraham Agreements (on normalizing Israel’s relations with the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco, made in 2020-2021), as well as to undermine Israel’s rapprochement with Saudi Arabia."

"Someone wanted to prevent this. I think that probably, this goal is being pursued not by Hamas but by someone who is funding and training Hamas and providing them with weapons. These are various countries, but Iran has mostly been seen doing that, because it benefits the most from the situation," Ben Zvi said.

The ambassador pointed out that Israel had no interest in expanding the conflict. According to him, the country will continue to do everything possible to nip in the bud any attacks similar to the one that occurred on October 7. "This requires destroying terrorist infrastructure, that is, the Hamas organization," Ben Zvi emphasized.

 

Kommersant: EU to blackball Russian diamond imports

The EU plans to fully shun Russian diamond imports, including direct supplies and purchases of diamonds cut abroad. If adopted, the proposed sanctions would be tougher than the US ones. Europe has always been an important market for Russian diamond giant Alrosa, but this year, Russia's diamond exports have already dropped four-fold compared to 2022. However, it is still unclear how the European authorities will monitor the flow of Russian gemstones cut in other countries, Kommersant writes.

The World Diamond Council (WDC) and the De Beers Diamond Consortium call for introducing the so-called G7 Diamond Protocol, which fully bans rough and polished Russian diamonds weighing more than one carat in G7 countries. Trade companies and independent auditors will be obliged to check compliance with the protocol. Belgium, however, has come up with an alternative plan, which provides for the mandatory use of blockchain technology for imported rough and polished diamonds. Government officials will regulate imports through the customs service at one entry point for rough diamonds and several points for polished diamonds.

It is difficult to cut Russia from the global rough diamond trade because the country accounts for 35% of global production and 40% of the world’s reserves, Boris Krasnozhyonov from Alfa-Bank said. Demand for diamonds is only growing in developing markets, particularly in India and China, and consumption there is at least one-third higher than Russian production, he specified. According to the analyst, it will take the EU years to implement its sanctions, including measures to track the origin of gemstones. In addition, apart from raising costs for end users, the sanctions will also disrupt the pace of supplies.

 

Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Kishida-Xi meeting yields more questions than answers

Japanese marines landed on the country’s island of Tokunoshima in the East China Sea as part of a training exercise to drive away potential aggressors. The media listed North Korea and Russia among them, but the main threat is believed to be China. The 11-day exercise took place across Japan. Earlier, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida stated that if China tried to seize Taiwan by force, East Asia would become a second Ukraine. Still, Kishida and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to build mutually beneficial relations at a meeting in San Francisco, Nezavisimaya Gazeta writes.

According to media reports, Kishida and Xi tried to achieve some progress in bilateral relations at the meeting, which took place on the sidelines of an APEC summit. It was their first meeting in a year. The two leaders reaffirmed their commitment to establishing mutually beneficial ties. However, a big gap on national security and economic issues stands in the way. No specific agreements were concluded on contentious political issues, so there was no thaw in relations.

Valery Kistanov, head of the Center for Japanese Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of China and Modern Asia, pointed out that "Japan sees China as the main military threat to national security." According to the expert, talk about the North Korea threat is more a matter of rhetoric because "Pyongyang will never attack Tokyo first." "As for Russia, the talk here is also just rhetorical. However, when it comes to China, some serious trouble is possible, particularly because of Taiwan," the analyst went on to say.

"That is why Japan is strengthening its southern frontiers. Taiwan is not very far from Japan, located only 110 kilometers from the nearest Japanese island. It’s not surprising that Japan is deploying missiles and radars to the area. Besides, the Americans have also started to form a regiment of their troops for a possible clash with China. That said, there were no breakthroughs in talks between Kishida and Xi. As for the most pressing issue, which concerns wastewater discharge from the Fukushima nuclear power plant, they agreed to continue talks," Kistanov noted.

 

Kommersant: Russian air carriers may launch flights to North Korea

Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency has suggested that national air carriers launch flights to Pyongyang. The regulator’s officials are in consultations with their North Korean counterparts on the possible expansion of air links between the two countries, Kommersant writes.

According to the newspaper, national air carrier Aeroflot and the Aurora airline headquartered in the Far East have been asked to assess the feasibility of performing such flights. North Korea’s only air carrier Air Koryo currently operates two flights a week between Pyongyang and Russia’s Far Eastern city of Vladivostok.

"Given the new foreign policy realities, Russia is creating new partnerships but it’s not easy to develop them without direct flights from Moscow," AviaPort agency head Oleg Panteleyev said. "Businessmen and politicians, who are most likely to be interested in such flights, are based in Moscow," he explained. That is why direct flights operated by Russian air carriers would make it much easier for Russian delegations to visit Pyongyang.

Industry sources have told Kommersant that at this point, the majority of passengers traveling to North Korea are those making business trips. The sources also assume that "workers, mostly construction workers," make up the bulk of those who travel from Pyongyang to Russia.

According to tourist companies, Russians started showing more interest in North Korea after President Vladimir Putin’s September meeting with DPRK leader Kim Jong Un and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s October trip to Pyongyang.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, Russian tourists could visit North Korea as part of organized tours. Difficulties in traveling to North Korea "are more stereotype than truth; it’s just another tourist trip," says Pyotr Lovygin, a YouTube travel blogger who visited the country in 2017.

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