MOSCOW, December 27. /TASS/. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has set forth three conditions for a potential Israeli-Palestinian peace deal; CIS leaders met informally in St. Petersburg to discuss the path forward; and Ukrainian lawmakers are taking up the issue of conscription reform amid massive battlefield losses for Kiev’s armed forces. These stories topped Wednesday’s newspaper headlines across Russia.

 

Vedomosti: Netanyahu names three conditions for Gaza peace but experts see little chance

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu outlined, in an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal, the three key conditions for a potential peace settlement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The first is the complete destruction of Hamas; the second is the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip; and the third is the deradicalization of the Palestinian population in Gaza. Experts interviewed by Vedomosti, however, see very little likelihood of Netanyahu’s conditions being implemented.

According to Lyudmila Samarskaya, a researcher at the Center for Middle East Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Primakov Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO RAS), each stage requires long-term efforts that would be fraught with numerous obstacles. The analyst also argued that the elimination of Hamas' organizational structure would appear to be a highly difficult task at this stage. "There is no doubt that the deradicalization of Palestinian society is an important component in resolving the Middle East conflict. However, technically speaking, it remains impossible to even imagine how the Israeli authorities would implement such a policy," she noted.

Ivan Bocharov, program coordinator at the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), agrees with Samarskaya. According to him, contrary to expectations, Hamas' favorability rating in Palestinian society has risen dramatically, and continued hostilities in Gaza will increase the popularity of its tactics not only in the Palestinian enclave, but also in the West Bank. "Even if Hamas ceases to exist as an organization, its ideology will live on. I wouldn't rule out other radical groups taking its place in the future," the analyst said. As a result, the problem of the radicalization of Palestinian society will not be resolved in the near future, especially not by force. Moreover, according to Bocharov, other Arab countries will not accept Israel's proposal for solving the Palestinian problem.

Samarskaya noted that the fighting in the Palestinian enclave is unlikely to stop anytime soon. At the same time, according to Bocharov, the Israeli military is gradually reducing the intensity of hostilities in Gaza and trying not to violate "red lines" in order to avoid drawing other external parties into the active fighting.

 

Izvestia: CIS leaders meet informally in St. Petersburg for discussion of path forward

Russia is set to assume the rotating chairmanship of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) intergovernmental organization in 2024. Moscow will focus in this role on strengthening economic ties between the CIS member states and expanding the execution of trade settlements in national currencies, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at an informal summit of CIS leaders in St. Petersburg. Cooperation in combatting the politically driven distortion of history and glorification of Nazism will also be a priority, he noted. Experts interviewed by Izvestia noted that the CIS retains its reputation as a universal political forum for finding common solutions, which is especially important in the face of Western pressure.

Putin also noted that 2023 has been "extremely active and eventful for the CIS." He emphasized that trade turnover between CIS countries has been growing steadily over the past year, increasing by 2% to $83.7 bln.

According to Timofey Bordachev, program director of the international Valdai Discussion Club, all countries participating in the summit not only maintain economic relations with each other, but are also active within various intergovernmental platforms, including the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), and also cooperate actively with China and India.

"The CIS countries are suffering from the same problems of economic globalization as a result of the West's actions. First of all, there is the economic war against Russia, with pressure on China and the collapse of the global financial infrastructure. As a result, at the summit, the leaders will be able to explore how to use the tools the CIS has at hand and the Commonwealth structure itself to counteract harmful external influences and, at the same time, seize new opportunities," Bordachev told Izvestia.

The main goal of Russia's CIS chairmanship will be to maintain and strengthen the close ties between the peoples of the CIS member states, as well as to promote goodwill and good neighborliness throughout the Commonwealth, Putin concluded.

After most of the summit guests had departed, Putin held bilateral talks with the leaders of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Izvestia that the parties’ discussions focused on cooperation in the gas sector.

 

Izvestia: Kiev’s military conscription reform unlikely to give depleted armed forces boost

Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, has received a draw law for reforming military service, conscription and mobilization procedures. The bill calls for strengthening mobilization guidelines, or, more precisely, it replaces the Ukrainian armed forces’ existing recruitment system with a new one. Kiev’s proposed changes in the military mobilization system are being driven by the substantial manpower losses incurred by Ukraine’s armed forces, but the reform is unlikely to affect the course of the special operation, the Russian Foreign Ministry told Izvestia. In addition to lowering the draft age, the reforms will allow the Ukrainian military command to mobilize recruits from among disabled people in the third disability category, which includes patients with severe internal organ problems or amputations.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky earlier discussed the military command's intention to recruit up to 500,000 people for service in the Ukrainian armed forces. Although the idea of drafting women has been hotly debated in recent weeks, the text of the document does not contain anything new in this regard; only female doctors and pharmacists will be required to register for military service.

"Most of the efforts being made by Ukrainian politicians at the moment are aimed at passing the buck to shift responsibility for this unpleasant proposal away from themselves and onto its initiator [within the Kiev regime]," Rodion Miroshnik, the Russian Foreign Ministry's ambassador-at-large for the Kiev regime's war crimes, told Izvestia.

The diplomat added that the conscription reform is not about improving Kiev's international standing, but about "fulfilling the terms of the [Faustian] bargain [Kiev has made with the West to be the latter’s proxy in fighting Russia]."

In fact, the reform of the conscription system, which Kiev has proposed for entirely understandable and rational reasons, may end up being utilized by Zelensky for meeting his own objectives, Izvestia writes.

According to political scientist Andrey Suzdaltsev, the adoption of the measure may cause Kiev to face another problem. As a result of adopting such a sweeping, across-the-board system, Ukraine may end up losing its last available human capital for carrying out a large-scale mobilization, he told Izvestia. "People will simply flee. They are already running away, and in no small numbers to Russia [as well]," he said. The expert believes that if this reform is enacted and implemented, Ukraine will be reduced to a nation of women, children, and the elderly.

 

Vedomosti: Japan’s Mitsui seeking to recall its employees from Arctic LNG-2 project

Japan-based Mitsui Corporation is planning to recall its workers from the Russian Arctic LNG-2 gas liquefaction project, according to the Sankei newspaper. The measure refers to the company's workers who have been assigned to the Japan Arctic LNG partnership. Through the partnership, Mitsui is involved in the Novatek LNG project. According to Vedomosti, the biggest problem for the project now is logistics.

According to sources interviewed for the article, the Japanese company made the employee recall decision in part to ensure that its workers would not be subject to US sanctions. However, Mitsui is reportedly not planning to pull out of the Arctic LNG-2 project overall. The decision was made by the company in light of media reports about the problems with Arctic LNG-2 that emerged after the US imposed sanctions on it in November; the project was placed on the US Treasury Department's strict SDN sanctions list and effectively blacklisted.

According to Finam FG analyst Sergey Kaufman, "technologically everything is ready" for the launch of Arctic LNG-2 in the first half of 2024. Novatek needed foreign partners for capital investments and contracts for the purchase of LNG, not for access to technology, so the company will most likely be able to do without them, BCS World of Investments senior analyst Ronald Smith told Vedomosti. But to do so, the company will need more of its own money and time, he noted. French company TotalEnergies, which owns a 10% stake in Arctic LNG-2, may pull out of the project altogether, but Kaufman believes it is less likely that Chinese and Japanese companies will follow suit.

According to Smith, logistics are currently the biggest obstacle to the project. Sanctions have delayed the delivery of the first 5-7 Arc7 tankers from South Korean and Russian shipyards, and the remaining 21 LNG tankers in the fleet are "even more in doubt," the analyst noted.

The failure of the project, analysts say, could lead to a global spike in gas prices. According to Kaufman, this LNG plant represents "significant" amounts of liquefaction capacity for a single project, or about 4% of the global total.

 

Nezavisimaya Gazeta: China limits exports of its technology to the West

China will account for half of the world's electric vehicle sales in two years, and it also has the core technologies to produce the natural components needed for electric vehicles. In addition, China has banned the transfer of these technologies without specific permission from the national government. In the summer, Beijing imposed restrictions on the export of gallium and germanium (used in the manufacture of chips), and in December on the export of certain types of graphite. The introduction of Chinese export restrictions on production technology for extracting rare earth metals (REM) and other key raw materials has caused concern in Western countries, Nezavisimaya Gazeta writes.

Washington is considering raising import taxes on electric vehicles in retaliation to China’s technology export ban. The administration of US President Joe Biden is debating whether to impose higher import taxes on Chinese batteries and electric cars.

Natural reserves of REM are not exclusive to China, but China is believed to hold 44 mln tons of REM, accounting for 34% of the world's reserves. Despite having the world's second-largest REM potential, Russia's current production accounts for only 2% of the global total.

According to Freedom Finance Global analyst Vladimir Chernov, a ban on China's exports of REM could create a shortage in the global market, which would in turn drive up prices for such metals. According to him, "a long-term action plan for the transition of the most advanced economies to renewable energy sources between 2035 and 2050 will help to drive the growth of global demand for these raw materials at the same time."

The "graphite war" between China and the United States is unlikely to have a major impact on Russia, experts say. "As far as Russia is concerned, we have decided to increase trade turnover with China in this conflict. We have stocks of rare metals, but we will also send them to the markets of friendly or neutral countries," Ekaterina Novikova, associate professor at the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, told the newspaper.

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