MOSCOW, December 25. /TASS/. Russia’s 2024 presidential race kicks off; the EAEU has successfully withstood sanctions pressure; and the Middle East is growing less dependent on the US. These stories topped Monday’s newspaper headlines across Russia.

 

Izvestia: Candidates declared, preparations underway for Russia’s 2024 presidential race

As of December 24, Russia’s political parties had officially selected their candidates for the presidential election slated for March 2024. Leonid Slutsky will be the standard bearer of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), Nikolay Kharitonov has been nominated by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF), and Vladislav Davankov will run as the nominee of the New People Party, which on the same day merged with the Party of Growth. The ruling party, United Russia, had earlier unanimously endorsed at a party congress the self-nomination of incumbent President Vladimir Putin. The A Just Russia-For Truth Party did likewise, opting against nominating its own candidate for the highest office. Overall, according to Russia’s Central Election Commission (CEC), nearly 30 candidates are now in the running.

Serious preparations are underway in voting districts as well. As the Independent Social Monitoring center told Izvestia, community headquarters for monitoring the presidential election have opened in nearly all of Russia’s 89 regions with the rest set to begin operations in January.

The training of public election observers is also underway with plans calling for preparing more than 200,000 people to serve as poll watchers in time for the election. Moreover, Russia will grant access to the March election to all foreign observers provided they come with "honest intentions" and not to cast aspersions upon or openly subvert the domestic political situation, Russian Federation Council (upper house of parliament) Speaker Valentina Matviyenko told Izvestia. According to her, invitations are in the works, including to international parliamentary organizations and structures.

Political scientist Alexey Martynov thinks that the situation around the special military operation will become the main theme of the electoral campaign. And here, in his opinion, it is important to highlight not just the internal political component but also support for Russian servicemen and their families and, in general, the resolution of social issues related to the special military operation in one way or another. The international track is just as important because the special operation is directly linked to the process of shaping a multipolar world. The candidates will have to articulate a clear stance as to how they see the life of the country under the ongoing pressure of Western sanctions and the standoff with the collective West, the expert added.

 

Nezavisimaya Gazeta: EAEU weathers sanctions stress test, ready to move on Iran trade pact

On December 25, the heads of member states of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) will sum up the trade bloc’s operational results for the past year and review pertinent issues in the union’s activity and its most promising focus areas for the future. The centerpiece of the meeting’s agenda will be the adoption of a declaration outlining the EAEU’s further development in the periods until 2030 and until 2045, respectively, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists. The year 2023 was marked by growing Western sanctions against Russia and Belarus, which could not but impact the EAEU participants. However, experts think that the organization withstood the sanctions stress test successfully and, moreover, is now ready to move forward with signing an agreement on a free trade zone with Iran.

Stanislav Pritchin, an expert at the Center for Post-Soviet Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO RAS), concurs that, overall, this was a good year for the EAEU with GDP, according to the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC), amounting to $1.7 trln (up 103.1% versus the January-September 2022 level). "Growing trade with all countries is being observed. The same positive dynamics is seen in investment projects as well. That is, the trends that we saw in 2023 for EAEU countries are that frequent difficulties, which have always emerged, and not just under the current conditions of geopolitical tension, have not had any major [adverse] impact on trade or on the development of integration processes in the Eurasian Economic Union, overall, and everything is following the approved five-year plan for the organization’s development. From the point of view of economic realities, the significance of trade within the EAEU is growing. And from the point of view of circumventing the sanctions, EAEU countries are retaining their importance and play a substantial role in linking the Russian Federation with the outside world," he told Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

Alexander Kobrinsky, director of the Agency for Ethno-National Strategies, gave a positive assessment of the past year for the EAEU. "Sanctions imposed on Russia and Belarus have become a motivating factor, not just for the unity of countries within the organization but also for stimulating their economic development. This is both about reviving and creating new industrial ties, even though all of them are still in their early stages. The year 2023 was a starting point in which all countries ended up closing their books in the black in terms of their GDP growth," he told the newspaper, noting that the positive trend was clear.

According to the expert, the EAEU’s foreign trade interests are also expanding. For example, Iran and the EAEU will sign an agreement on a free trade zone. This will not only help increase trade turnover but will also encourage more fully utilizing the logistics opportunities provided by the North-South transport corridor and Armenia’s transit capabilities.

 

Vedomosti: Middle East diversifying ties, gradually shedding dependence on US

The conflict in Ukraine and the West’s introduction of blanket anti-Russian sanctions have motivated several Middle Eastern countries to diversify their external ties and lessen their dependency on the US, according to a report by the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) titled "Regional trends in the Middle East: political and economic dynamics," a copy of which was made available to Vedomosti.

The weakening of Washington’s position in the Middle East is attributable to several factors, concurs Boris Dolgov, a leading researcher at the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Oriental Studies. First of all, this is being driven by the restoration of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran. "Previously, Washington was trying to usher in the creation of an anti-Iranian military and political alliance along the lines of an ‘Arab NATO,’ which would have included the Arab monarchies of the Persian Gulf and Israel. This plan collapsed after ties between Riyadh and Tehran normalized," the expert explained.

Secondly, following the outbreak of the current hot phase of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the US’ ambitions to carry out joint economic infrastructure projects in the Middle East, which were to have involved both the Persian Gulf monarchies and Israel, have fallen through, Dolgov added. "The resumption of combat in the Gaza Strip has facilitated the consolidation of the Arab Muslim world against Tel Aviv. One cannot count on any resumption of the Arab-Israeli dialogue under current conditions," he explained.

According to the expert, in the medium-term perspective, the US will continue to play an important role in regional affairs because Washington remains the largest arms supplier to Arab monarchies and the Persian Gulf is a key node in the global US archipelago of military bases.

Dolgov thinks that Russia’s position in the Middle East can be bolstered somewhat by Arab monarchies joining BRICS, in which Moscow occupies a key position. "In my opinion, one shouldn’t expect Moscow’s greater activity on security issues in the Middle East due to [its preoccupation with] the Ukrainian crisis. However, the Russian government will continue pursuing its political and diplomatic activity on that track," the expert concluded.

 

Izvestia: Northern Fleet air corps to patrol, protect Russia’s Northern Sea Route

The Northern Sea Route will be defended by patrols conducted by a mixed air corps of fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft. The corps has been formed within the Russian Navy’s Northern Fleet and has already entered service. It includes two jet fighter regiments as well as composite and helicopter regiments. The new combat formation will not only cover Russia’s critical Arctic transport artery but also northern islands against the adversary’s air, ground, above-water and underwater forces. Experts note that Russia’s possession of the Northern Sea Route is being disputed by other countries, thus making it necessary to bolster northern border defenses.

"The Northern Fleet will protect important naval bases, islands, the Northern Sea Route, our ships in the Barents [Sea] and other seas. The new mixed aviation corps will engage in defense. Our [Far] North[ern regions are] not going to be calm. Over recent years, the activity of ships and spy planes on our northern borders has grown several-fold and there is no visible trend toward a decrease in [this activity]. On the contrary, it will only grow. NATO countries and several others are practically waging an undeclared war against us. If the situation escalates, the Northern Fleet will have to block access to the waters of the Northern Sea Route to unfriendly fleets. Aviation is needed to handle this task," military expert Dmitry Boltenkov told Izvestia.

The aviation corps will play the most important role in the Arctic, concurs Igor Malikov, a decorated test pilot and Hero of Russia. "The northern borders used to be poorly protected," he noted. "It was thought that these were difficult-to-access territories and thus no threat should be expected from there. But this is not the case. Any bomber from the North Pole area can deliver a strike with long-range cruise missiles on our territory. The possibility [of such enemy attacks] should be precluded. And, most importantly, the US and several other countries are currently disputing our right to the Northern Sea Route," he added.

 

Kommersant: Foreign shareholders freeze participation in Arctic LNG-2 project

According to Kommersant, the foreign shareholders in the Arctic LNG-2 project - France’s TotalEnergies, China’s CNPC and CNOOC, and the consortium of Japan’s Mitsui and JOGMEC - have declared force majeure concerning their participation in the project. This may result in Arctic LNG-2 losing long-term contracts for exporting LNG, forcing Russia’s Novatek to finance the project independently. That said, Chinese and Japanese companies have petitioned the US authorities to lift sanctions on LNG supplies. So far, Arctic LNG-2 is forced to sell gas on the spot market, which brings up the issue of having ice-class tankers for LNG exports. According to Kommersant, the Zvezda shipyard may again delay their delivery, but there is a chance that such tankers will be received from foreign shipyards during 2024.

Sergey Kondratyev, an expert at the Institute of Energy and Finance Foundation, thinks that Novatek will be able to finance the project independently even though it will be more expensive. "I don’t quite believe in Chinese banks talking about defaulting. I think, right now, we do not completely understand how long-term the situation is with redirecting the cargo belonging to other shareholders; is this about the suspension or termination of long-term contracts," he added.

The lack of Arc7 ice-class tankers remains one of the main problems facing Arctic LNG-2. It will not be possible to order new vessels from foreign shipyards quickly, thinks Viktor Katona at commodities data and analytics firm Kpler: Chinese shipyards have filled their order books until the end of 2025 and South Korean ones until 2026. The only option is to find pre-owned tankers. "Yet the moment the word is out that Novatek is buying up LNG tankers, their price tag will double as was the case with oil tankers and the large purchasing program for Russian oil at the end of 2022." According to the expert, as a last resort, it is possible to switch Arc7 tankers now servicing Yamal LNG, which has not been sanctioned, to servicing Arctic LNG-2, engaging tankers from the market to export gas from the Yamal project.

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