MOSCOW, August 5. /TASS/. Zelensky floats idea of holding referendum in Ukraine, letting people decide on territorial concessions; anti-immigration protests erupt in Britain; and Moscow to continue fighting to free Russians being held in US. These stories topped Monday's newspaper headlines across Russia.
Izvestia: Zelensky's idea to let people decide on territorial concessions unfeasible
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s recent remarks that "no one president, or one person, or all the presidents in the world, can resolve the issue of Ukraine’s territorial integrity without the Ukrainian people," have stirred significant discussion. Made during an interview with French newspaper Le Monde, Zelensky’s statement has ignited a debate about the potential for a referendum in Ukraine, which could theoretically open the door to negotiations on resolving the Ukraine crisis.
Should a majority of Ukrainians express a desire to end hostilities and adjust borders based on current realities, it could pave the way for a resolution to the conflict between Moscow and Kiev. However, the Russian side remains skeptical about the Ukrainian authorities' willingness to make this type of move, as holding such a plebiscite would automatically raise the issue of why Kiev refrained from holding a presidential election, shining an unwanted light on Zelensky's legitimacy in the process, Russian Foreign Ministry Ambassador at Large Rodion Miroshnik told Izvestia.
Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Nikolay Azarov said he was unaware if anyone in Kiev was currently making arrangements for such a referendum, adding that this was a very complicated, technical procedure. "I doubt [any referendum] will be held. On the other hand, this is a puppet regime, and if it for some reason decides to hold one, it will take place, producing the necessary result," he maintained.
Moreover, a nationwide referendum cannot be carried out amid a state of war or emergency, even if the president or the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) decides to call one. What's more, the country’s Constitution does not give the people the right to initiate a plebiscite on territorial changes.
"The writing on the wall is that Donald Trump may come to power in the United States, and he has already stated that the conflict should be ended. Furthermore, the sentiment inside Ukraine is that the conflict must be ended on any terms. <...> And Zelensky is now simply trying to shift responsibility on to the Ukrainian people," the former lawmaker said.
Media: Violent anti-immigration protests rock Britain in wake of tragic stabbing incident
Violent protests have swept Great Britain after three little girls were knifed to death during a children's dance class in the northwestern English town of Southport on July 29. Several more kids and two adults were injured severely in the attack. Police apprehended the 17-year-old assailant, born in the U.K. to Rwandan parents, shortly thereafter. Later, rumors spread online that the attacker was a radical Muslim, causing outrage and spurring anti-immigrant sentiment.
The United Kingdom faced a similar situation in 2011 when mass protests raged for five days after a black British man was shot dead by police. While the latest incident caused less street violence, it aroused major concern inside the British government. On Saturday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer convened an emergency meeting with his key ministers as he pledged to double down on the fight against extremists.
Soon after the riots erupted, British media claimed that Russia may allegedly be behind the far-right protests. The Daily Mail took this the furthest, publishing an exclusive story on Thursday about a Russian-linked fake news website that it revealed fueled lies that sparked the protests over the Southport stabbings. On August 2, the Russian embassy in London dismissed media reports which it said "were fueled by irresponsible comments from former intelligence officers blaming the rising social upheaval on Russia as untrue," Kommersant quoted the diplomatic mission as saying.
Against the backdrop of the anti-immigration protests, the new Labour Cabinet may perhaps strengthen security on the country’s border or take harsh measures against the instigators of the riots, Yelena Ananyeva, head of the British Studies Center at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Europe, told Vedomosti. "The Starmer government will drag its feet on this issue. The most that it will do is voice harsh criticism of illegal migrants," Sergey Shein, researcher with the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the Higher School of Economics, argues.
While the Conservative opposition will try to use these protests to earn brownie points with voters, they are focused on electing a new leader at the moment. Ananyeva, too, doubts the unrest will cause any political crisis in the country or the resignation of the new Cabinet as Labour has a majority in the House of Commons.
Izvestia: Kremlin determined to bring home more Russians being held in US prisons
Freeing Russians jailed in the United States remains an absolute priority for Moscow, Nadezhda Shumova, head of the consular department of the Russian embassy in the United States, told Izvestia. Among other prisoners, she emphasized, Russia will push for the release of Alexander Vinnik, who was arrested on a US warrant in Greece in 2017. His lawyer Arkady Bukh said that every effort is being made to get Vinnik and dozens of other Russian prisoners in the US back home. Discussions on the issue have heated up after the recent landmark 26-prisoner swap between Russia and the West.
Bukh explained that dialogue on the procedures for an exchange is held between special services and that no unified procedure exists. "Prisoner exchanges are authorized by relevant agencies, and this requires a calm and professional dialogue," Shumova agrees.
Even those exchanged are kept in the dark about the details, Konstantin Blokhin, leading researcher at the Center for Security Studies Konstantin Blokhin told Izvestia. "There could be additional swaps, albeit not as large-scale as the recent one, in the future if the United States and Russia have a mutual interest," he said.
However, the latest deal cannot be viewed as a positive breakthrough in interstate relations between Russia and the United States, the political analyst added. "Similar exchanges mediated by Arab monarchies take place, for example, between Russia and Ukraine. But this does not serve as an indication of any normalization looming ahead," he concluded.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Armenia looking for contractor to build its new nuke plant
The Armenian government has established a firm to build a nuclear power plant in the former Soviet republic. Among other things, its staff have been tasked with choosing the best contractor from those available on the market. The project worth a little over $2 mln should be completed within the next 18 to 24 months.
The lifespan of Armenia’s Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant which was supposed to be closed in 2017 has been repeatedly extended. In December, Armenia signed a $65 mln agreement with Russia’s state-owned Rosatom Corporation to upgrade and renew the nuclear facility with a view to keep it operable until 2036 after which it will have to be decommissioned. The Metsamor NPP covers a bit less than one-third of Armenia’s domestic energy demand and even enables Yerevan to export part of its electricity to Georgia and Iran.
The Armenian authorities are looking at Chinese, Russian, South Korean, French and US bids to build a new NPP. And the republic is weighing how powerful a plant it may need. While the United States, for one, can build a modular reactor that can generate up to 300 MW of electricity, Rosatom has proposed building one with a capacity ranging between 50 to 1,000 MW, using any number of 50MW modules.
Armenian political scientist Grant Mikaelyan told Nezavisimaya Gazeta that, thanks to Rosatom and the EU, the risk of a nuclear accident at the Metsamor NPP is currently estimated at a failure rate of one per 50,000 reactor years but added that the remaining power unit is severely outdated.
"Armenia does not want to be without a nuclear power plant. Nor does the country want to have its political image damaged," he explained. While the republic does not currently need the amount of power generated by the Metsamor plant, the situation may change further down the road amid the rise in electric vehicles, computers or efforts to move away from relying on fossil fuels, he said.
While Yerevan initially liked Rosatom’s bid more, in terms of the price, technology and power generation volume, it is now leaning to the US bid. In any case, a new power plant will replace the Soviet facility, even if Armenia currently has no money to build one, he added.
Kommersant: St. Petersburg exchange proposes launching trading in aluminum
The Saint-Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange (SPIMEX) has sent a letter to the government proposing setting up trading in low carbon aluminum of which Rusal is the largest producer.
In its letter, the platform maintained that access to foreign markets for Russian companies has dwindled after the US and the UK moved in April to ban Russian aluminum, copper and nickel imports and since no Russian metals have been eligible for delivery to the London Metal Exchange (LME) or the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) either. However, representative price indices for the metal are needed against this background, SPIMEX argued. And although some market players have been mulling using indicators from the Shanghai Metal Exchange, such a solution is unreliable, since Chinese companies, facing the threat of secondary sanctions, have tended to comply with US and EU requirements, the letter insisted.
A source told Kommersant that it is too early to discuss setting up any market indicators in Russia as the number of consumers is limited.
Chief strategist at Vector X brokerage Maxim Khudalov argues that large consumers will not be able to buy Russian metals in the event of full-out sanctions anyway, while SPIMEX could do for smaller Chinese or Indian companies with time. Perhaps, what he called reckless US sanctions would prompt BRICS to create a settlements system with protection from any external exposure, he said.
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