MOSCOW, June 10. /TASS/. Russia and Ukraine exchanged POWs under the age of 25, protests continue to escalate in California, and the US and China initiated negotiations on rare earth metals. These stories topped Tuesday's headlines across Russia.
Izvestia: What follows prisoner swap between Russia, Ukraine
Ukraine’s delays in fulfilling agreements with Russia are related to domestic factors and Kiev’s relations with its backers, Rodion Miroshnik, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s ambassador-at-large in charge of overseeing the Kiev regime’s crimes, told Izvestia. Experts add that Ukraine’s current authorities are afraid of losing face, which would exacerbate negative attitudes domestically. On June 9, Russia and Ukraine held the first swap of prisoners of war under the age of 25 even though agreements on this were reached in Istanbul a week ago. Moscow also offered Kiev to return the bodies of dead soldiers; however, Kiev has not yet taken its servicemen back. Against this background, Russian and Belarusian foreign ministers will discuss the situation around Ukraine.
Miroshnik told Izvestia that Russia has completely fulfilled the agreements, the ball is in Ukraine’s court, and the responsibility for the official reaction to the humanitarian initiative proposed by Russia rests with the Kiev regime.
The Ukrainian authorities do not want to accept the bodies of their soldiers because such a number of fatalities undermines all narratives promoted by Ukrainian propaganda. Additionally, the majority of soldiers being handed over were killed in the Kursk area, while waging combat there was Zelensky’s personal initiative, former Verkhovna Rada deputy Spiridon Kilinkarov told Izvestia.
"I am confident that they will try to stall this procedure for as long as possible, questioning it, conducting a multitude of expert evaluations, and attempt to remove this issue from the spotlight so that the Ukrainians won’t focus on it," he explained.
Launching talks and continuing them is necessary in the very least to return soldiers home. Not only is this an argument against those who oppose interaction with Kiev but also a vivid demonstration that Russia is thinking about its servicemen in captivity and is making every diplomatic effort to release them, analyst Tigran Meloyan from the HSE Mediterranean Studies Center said.
Swapping POWs and the bodies of those killed always precedes the main talks on settling the conflict. This way, the sides are trying to alleviate the sharpest aspects of the standoff and display readiness to continue the discussion. That said, the conflict’s main topics, for instance, Ukraine’s neutral status and territorial issues, cannot be resolved independently by Kiev, professor Natalya Yeremina of St. Petersburg State University concluded.
Media: Protests in California, their meaning and consequences
Tough measures against protest rallies of migrants in California may lead to the loss of support for Donald Trump as well as give Democrats an excuse to criticize his policies, experts believe. The protests in Los Angeles have been underway for over three days. Earlier, about 6,000 people took to the streets waving Mexican flags, setting cars on fire, hurling stones and Molotov cocktails. Reacting to this, Trump ordered the deployment of about 2,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles bypassing California’s authorities, which has already triggered criticism.
The harsh methods of dispersing mass protests will definitely affect Trump’s rankings even more, Konstantin Blokhin, a leading researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Center for Security Studies, told Izvestia.
"This is precisely what the Democrats are waiting for because any suppression of protests will be used by them in the context of internal political clashes. Trump will definitely be labeled a 'bloody despot,' 'a tyrant,' 'a Fascist' and 'a racist.' And here Trump is at a crossroads: on the one hand, it is necessary to display sufficient toughness (such as deploying the National Guard), but not excessive because this would lead to backlash," the expert noted.
At this stage, it is difficult to talk about the effectiveness of Trump’s anti-migrant policy, Blokhin explained. Not much time has elapsed but the US leader cannot abandon this issue because it was one of his main promises during his election campaign.
The protests in Los Angeles are considered legitimate as long as they remain peaceful, believes Pavel Koshkin, a senior researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute for US and Canadian Studies. In a conversation with Vedomosti, the expert noted that the authorities have the right to use force if the violence escalates, which gives Trump justification to deploy the National Guard. California Governor Gavin Newsom must present convincing counterarguments in court, citing the state’s autonomy. The specialist believes Newsom has a reasonable chance of winning the case in liberal California, but success is less likely if it reaches the Supreme Court due to the prevailing conservative majority there.
The protests may be supported in other US states, for example, in Florida and Massachusetts where the immigration issue is also pressing, believes Director of the Center for North American Studies at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations Victoria Zhuravleva. That said, she told Vedomosti that the conflict between Trump and the Californian authorities goes beyond the sphere of migration policy - this is a standoff between the federal center and liberal states. For Newsom, the situation became an opportunity to signal his presidential ambitions while defending California’s interests. In turn, Trump is using the crisis to expand the capabilities of federal power, she noted.
Vedomosti: US, China begin negotiations on rare-earth metals
High-ranking representatives from the US and China held a new round of trade talks in London on June 9. It was expected that they would focus on the issues of Beijing’s export control over rare-earth metals, which has tightened since the onset of an all-out trade war. This issue was discussed by the leaders of the two countries in a phone conversation on June 5, Director of the National Economic Council of the United States Kevin Hassett said in an interview with CBS News on June 8.
According to Head of the Sector of Economy and Politics of China at the Center for Asia-Pacific Studies at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations Sergey Lukonin, it will be difficult for the Chinese delegation to get clear obligations on changing trade policies from the US.
"China’s economy is displaying greater stability compared to the American one," he emphasized. The US remains dependent on Chinese products, and American businesses in China are interested in retaining the current economic relations. The expert noted the record-high drop in Chinese exports to the US to the 2020 levels which, however, is not critical for the scale of China’s economy. "Some export flows were redirected to Southeast Asia, for example, to Vietnam," the expert explained. Speaking of China’s potential response measures, Lukonin is forecasting continued subsidies for the export sector, bolstered control over rare-earth metals supply chains, and the introduction of selective restrictions on the purchases of US goods.
China will be forced to concede because the threat of high tariffs remains an effective ultimatum on the part of the US, believes independent analyst Andrey Kochetkov. In his opinion, a major purchase of US agricultural products by China may become a potential way out of the current situation, just as it happened during Trump’s first presidential term. Kochetkov questions the stability of China’s position in the sphere of control over rare earths: "The restrictions may trigger an opposite effect, stimulating the development of their extraction technologies in other countries, including the US." Kochetkov points out that currently both sides are in a balanced position, and the "current talks will inevitably be based on mutual compromises."
Rossiyskaya Gazeta: Who gains from OPEC+ oil increase and why
Saudi Arabia insists on retaining the accelerated pace of increasing oil production by the eight countries of the OPEC+ alliance in August and September, Bloomberg said citing sources.
This involves the OPEC+ eight members, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the UAE, Algeria, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, and Oman, abandoning their voluntary reduction of oil production to 2.2 million barrels per day. The return to oil volumes previously removed from the market by the alliance began in April.
Valery Andrianov, associate professor at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, believes that Russia has significant prospects in terms of increasing oil production. It is enough to recall the Vostok Oil project, which will be launched relatively soon with an annual production of up to 100 million tons. However, for Russia, it is not the opportunity to boost oil output but the infrastructure bottlenecks for raw material exports such as ice-class tankers that becomes more pressing.
According to Andrianov, currently, Saudi Arabia is pursuing the only viable strategy, a gradual distancing from the use of the OPEC+ mechanism while saving face. The oil alliance has largely lost its effectiveness, and any further reduction in production would result in losing more and more market niches without any significant surge in global prices.
According to Finam analyst Nikolay Dudchenko, there are several possible explanations behind OPEC+ increasing oil production. The first is a likely reaction to seasonal growth in demand. The second suggests that OPEC+ is striving to lower oil prices in order to "punish" its own participants for breaching the agreement, notably Kazakhstan, which continues to exceed its production quota. The third version is the group’s attempt to regain its market share through growing production, having pushed US shale oil producers off the market by reducing prices.
Izvestia: CIS may expand with SCO countries joining in
The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) has begun developing the CIS Plus platform, the organization told Izvestia. Countries can join the new format either as partners or observers. For example, members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) may join individually or the entire organization collectively. The sides have promising areas for cooperation: economic, humanitarian, as well as the security sphere, experts emphasize. The role of international organizations and blocs in the Eurasian space has been increasing lately, with the SCO and BRICS attracting more new partners.
"The CIS Plus platform is being developed and is similar to BRICS+ bringing in partners who are not necessarily formal members of the organization. That is, participation in the CIS is possible both via membership and also via partnership or observation," Andrey Sazonov, director of the CIS Department for Cooperation in the Political, Humanitarian and Social Spheres, told Izvestia.
The CIS and SCO have many points of intersection. For example, for both organizations, fighting terrorism and curbing drug trafficking is important, Belarusian political scientist Alexey Dzermant told the newspaper.
"So, such countries as Pakistan, India, and Iran could also benefit from the CIS Plus format," he said.
The organizations can also collaborate on resolving humanitarian and cultural issues. For instance, for China, one of the SCO’s leaders, such integration would be beneficial, and initiatives along the CIS lines could be continued there, the expert believes.
Expanding cooperation between the organizations also benefits Moscow, particularly amid the West’s ongoing attempts to isolate it.
The organization’s new formats are becoming increasingly popular, while participation in them enhances the countries’ status which is one of the reasons many nations are eager for such cooperation, expert at the Valdai Discussion Club Andrey Kortunov said.
"The majority of these formats do not involve any strict obligations for members. That is, unlike classic integration projects or military-political alliances, these new-generation multilateral groups are extremely flexible. One could say that so far, the ‘entry ticket’ to these structures is cost-free. This is also their advantage, something that makes them attractive," the expert concluded.
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