MOSCOW, September 3. /TASS/. Russia and China unveil the world’s largest gas project; plans for the use of nuclear weapons are expected to be worked out in two drills in Belarus; and Donald Trump deploys warships to Venezuela in a bid to pressure Caracas into concessions. These stories topped Wednesday’s newspaper headlines across Russia.
Media: Russia, China unveil world’s largest gas project
Russia and China have given the approval to the project for the construction of the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline and the Soyuz-Vostok transit pipeline via Mongolia. Russia’s Gazprom gas giant and the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) have signed a memorandum on strategic cooperation: gas supplies of 50 billion cubic meters of gas per year will run for 30 years, while total annual supplies will rise to 106 billion cubic meters. According to Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller, this is going to be the world’s largest gas industry project, Izvestia notes.
"After gas deliveries via the Power of Siberia pipeline successfully reached full contract volumes, China showed an interest in securing additional amounts of gas. And now, it has been put on paper," said Alexey Grivach, deputy director of the National Energy Security Fund.
According to Tamara Safonova, director general of the Independent Oil and Gas Analytical Agency, in the long term, the projected increase in gas exports to China will turn Russia into the key reliable energy supplier for the expanding Chinese economy. "The development of pipeline projects will make it possible for Beijing to ensure its energy security and reduce the import of liquefied natural gas, primarily from the US and Australia, as well as to achieve economic growth by reducing costs and securing stable supplies," the expert elaborated.
Dmitry Kasatkin, managing partner at Kasatkin Consulting, points out that Russia, in turn, is getting guarantees of long-term sales on the growing Asian market, while reducing its dependence on difficulties with LNG exports and also boosting its mechanical engineering and pipe industries. "Both parties will also benefit in terms of financial settlements as the contracts will partially be denominated in national currencies, reducing the countries’ dependence on the US dollar," the analyst added.
Igor Yushkov, an expert with the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, told Kommersant that the reliability of supplies was becoming increasingly important for China. "It will be far more difficult for the West to disrupt Russian gas supplies than to cut off LNG exports to China," he noted.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Nuclear weapons scenarios to be tested in two drills in Belarus
A series of military maneuvers has begun in Belarus. The first exercise, dubbed Interaction 2025, involves troops from Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) member states, which are expected to work out issues related to the use of nuclear weapons for the first time in post-Soviet history. The same tasks will be addressed later at the Zapad 2025 (or West 2025) Russian-Belarusian drills. The exercises come at a time when Western countries are considering the option of sending troops to Ukraine in case of a ceasefire, while holding drills along the borders of the Union State of Russia and Belarus, Nezavisimaya Gazeta notes.
Russia deployed its tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus two years ago, and in the spring and summer of 2024, the two countries held joint exercises to go through activities related to planning, preparing and carrying out tactical nuclear weapons strikes. Now, the same operations will likely be performed during the CSTO drills, which, apart from Russia and Belarus, involve Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. Lieutenant General (Ret.) Yury Netkachev, a military expert, believes that the parties will probably test the rules for delivering and installing mock nuclear weapons on aircraft and the Iskander missile systems; besides, electronic and actual launches of simulated nuclear weapons are also possible.
Ukraine and the countries that support Kiev have taken note of the CSTO drills and the upcoming Zapad 2025 exercise. Germany does not expect Russia to attack NATO, Bundeswehr Inspector General Carsten Breuer said. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry demanded Belarus keep the drills away from the border.
"Kiev and NATO are wary of the military drills taking place in the Union State, even though Moscow and Minsk have repeatedly stated the exercises are aimed at deterring the West’s aggression," Netkachev pointed out. He emphasized that on September 2, Poland had launched the Iron Defender-25 exercise, the largest one this year. Another major NATO maneuver, Namejs 2025, has started in Latvia. "A total of over 40,000 NATO troops will be stationed along the western border of the Union State in September 2025," Netkachev specified.
The expert noted that some 2,000 troops were taking part in the Interaction-2025 drills, while the Zapad-2025 exercise will involve about 30,000 service members, according to the Western media’s estimates. The Belarusian Defense Ministry stated that the Interaction-2025 maneuvers had been deliberately moved deeper inside the country in order to "ease tensions." As for the Zapad 2025 drills, they are also aimed at practicing defensive missions; observers from NATO countries have been invited to attend and the maneuver’s goals have been explained to Western countries, Netkachev stressed.
Vedomosti: Donald Trump deploys warships to Venezuela to extract concessions
The US continues to deploy warships in the Caribbean Sea, raising concerns from Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. This is how US leader Donald Trump seeks to compel the latter to make significant concessions in the fields that Washington considers important, Vedomosti writes.
The Donald Trump administration has cited the need to combat drug cartels to justify its move to send warships to the Venezuelan coast. Trump and his team see Maduro as virtually the chief "drug terrorist" of the region. Besides, the US authorities have hinted that they could reconsider their recognition of his legitimacy as Venezuela’s president.
Trump not only wants to put pressure on Venezuela with regard to the fight against drug cartels but also to make the country tighten its migration policy, preventing refugees from traveling to the United States, Pavel Koshkin, senior researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute for US and Canadian Studies, said. As for the possibility of an intervention or the use of military force to overthrow Maduro, Koshkin believes that it’s just an attempt at deterrence at this point. The goal is not only to force Maduro to rein in migration flows and drug smuggling but also to discourage him from strengthening ties with Russia and China. However, the expert pointed out that it was hard to say how far those intimidation attempts would go. "Still, knowing Trump’s ways, he is hardly interested in another war, given his Nobel Peace Prize ambition," Koshkin added.
Trump currently seeks to put pressure on Maduro personally, Pavel Dubravsky, head of Dubravsky Consulting, observed. According to him, the pressure is growing based on Trump’s desire to make Caracas assist the US in limiting illegal immigration, and also on US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s ideological zeal as an ardent anti-socialist and anti-communist. In particular, Dubravsky sees the current US steps as a signal for the Venezuelan opposition to act. Besides, the US administration could also hope to spark discontent in Maduro’s inner circle.
Izvestia: EU moves to alter accession rules for Ukraine’s benefit
European Union countries are looking for ways to accelerate Ukraine’s accession into the group. However, it will affect the fundamental principles of the EU, experts interviewed by Izvestia warn. Some member states suggest making a decision by a majority instead of consensus, while others call for bypassing Hungary’s veto. These issues were on the agenda of the informal EU ministerial meeting that was held in Copenhagen on September 2.
Notably, the EU’s fundamental principle is that decisions should be made by a vote of all its members. This is a standard procedure pursued by all international organizations of this kind. That said, the idea to replace a consensus vote with a majority decision violates not only the principle of equality of EU member states but also the principles of sovereignty, said Vladimir Shapovalov, deputy director of Moscow State Pedagogical University’s Institute of History and Politics.
"And of course, it has nothing to do with the rules of international law, that is, the fundamental principles that the European Union boasts about. It turns out that the union does not care about what a particular nation thinks, which is absolutely wrong from the perspective of the democratic principles of international organizations. However, we see that the situation is changing and the West may now violate its own regulations in order to achieve its geopolitical goals," the expert remarked.
Still, the likelihood of Ukraine and Moldova becoming EU members remains slim, even though it is the desired goal of EU bureaucrats.
"A wave of discontent is sweeping across the European Union. Hungary is not the only country that opposes the idea. A significant portion of the EU population and political elites have come to realize the potential severe consequences that this path could lead to because Ukraine and Moldova — the poorest countries in Europe — will become a major burden for the EU, which it would simply be unable to bear," the analyst concluded.
Izvestia: Russia shifts fertilizer exports to BRICS countries
While the West is imposing restrictions on Russian fertilizers, Moscow is diverting strategic supplies to friendly markets. Russian fertilizer deliveries to India, China and Latin America have already increased by 20% year-on-year. In contrast, Europe risks being left without these key commodities, Izvestia reports.
On July 1, 2025, the European Union introduced additional tariffs of 50% on all agricultural and fertilizer imports from Russia and Belarus. The duties are expected to rise to the prohibitive level of 100% by 2029. Europe is now facing a difficult choice of whether to try to restrict Russia’s revenues in the medium term or risk a surge in domestic food prices due to food interdependence, said Boris Bogoutdinov, managing partner at the 2B Dialogue consulting company.
Russian fertilizers cannot be expected to be replaced in the next five years because alternative suppliers either don’t have enough production capacity or charge much higher prices. Moroccan phosphates, Canadian potassium carbonate and US nitrogen fertilizers cannot fully make up for Russian fertilizers without European farmers having to pay more, Nadezhda Kapustina, professor with the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, added.
According to Olga Borisova, associate professor with the Department of Corporate Finance and Corporate Governance at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, the further redirection of fertilizer exports to BRICS countries, Africa, Asia and Latin America will allow Russian businesses to strengthen their presence on other promising markets such as Thailand, Indonesia, the African continent and Cuba. These are all agrarian-oriented markets, interested in stable supplies, and their needs will only expand.
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