MOSCOW, December 24. /TASS/. Ukraine considers holding a presidential election, while US President Donald Trump unveiled plans for a Golden Fleet. Meanwhile, gold prices have surged 70% over the past year. These stories topped Wednesday’s newspaper headlines across Russia.
Izvestia: Ukraine floats idea of holding presidential election
A potential election in Ukraine can hardly be considered fair unless the votes of millions of Ukrainians living in Russia are counted, Russian Foreign Ministry Ambassador-at-Large Rodion Miroshnik told Izvestia. Earlier, the Verkhovna Rada, or Ukraine’s parliament, announced the formation of a working group to organize a potential presidential election, something on which the US president has insisted. However, it is not clear when the voting could take place. Experts doubt it will be held any time soon, while Ukraine’s Central Election Commission has said it would be optimal to arrange an election within the next six months.
Vladimir Oleinik, a former Ukrainian MP, dismissed the idea as pure lies meant to avoid saying no to Donald Trump. "If we take [Vladimir] Zelensky’s statement regarding holding an election within the next 60 to 90 days, I’ll tell you as a lawyer and a former parliamentarian that it would be impossible," he said.
Zelensky is likely to try to delay the process as he realizes that he will stand very low chances of winning, according to Oleg Karpovich, vice rector of the Diplomatic Academy. He cited opinion polls showing Zelensky trailing former Ukrainian commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny and head of Ukraine’s military intelligence Kirill Budanov (listed in Russia as a terrorist and extremist). "Anti-corruption probes raise a question mark over his future, while a conflict with oligarchs poses a threat to his life. He will cling to power as long as he can," the expert opined.
Bogdan Bezpalko, a member of the Russian Presidential Council for Interethnic Relations, argued that the election process, if it ever takes place, will at least face delays, "because Ukrainian and European politicians may also expect the geopolitical situation to change <…> which would dispense with the need to hold this election at all," he added.
Meanwhile, amid battlefield failures affecting Ukrainian troops and economic problems in the country, the popularity of the head of the Kiev regime has significantly dropped. Against this background, he has been actively floating the idea of online voting, which creates opportunities for fraud, as the Verkhovna Rada fears. Political analyst Denis Denisov said in an interview with Izvestia that developing a fully secure remote-voting system within a matter of months is almost impossible.
Vedomosti: Trump announces building golden fleet armed with lasers
The United States is planning to develop a new class of battleships that will be named after President Donald Trump. Secretary of the Navy John Phelan said the future Trump-class battleship will be "the largest, deadliest and most versatile and best-looking warship anywhere on the world’s oceans." Besides standard weapons and missiles, Trump emphasized, the new battleships will be equipped with hypersonic missiles, electromagnetic railguns, and high-powered lasers.
As of December, the ambitious project was at the design stage, with a plan to build the first warship in the early 2030s. Phelan said the US Navy would need 20 to 25 such vessels. The battleship initiative will replace the Pentagon’s earlier plans to build a DDG(X)-class destroyer.
Senior research fellow in the Department of Military-Political Studies at the Institute for US and Canadian Studies Igor Shkrobtak dismissed the idea as controversial, saying he questioned the specific use of such battleships. According to the expert, one such battleship could cost $10 billion, while Trump said it could cost at least $5 billion. CNN estimated a price tag as high as $15 billion.
The US is unlikely to build such battleships soon at an optimal price, Shkrobtak continued. "The American shipbuilding industry, including warship building, faces major systemic problems that would hamper implementing this project any time soon," he said. Therefore, Shkrobtak emphasized, not only the Trump administration but also future Republican administrations might put it into practice, and Trump’s successors, especially Democrats, may abandon the initiative.
However, the idea itself is not unreasonable, Ilya Kramnik, research fellow with the Center for Strategic Planning at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of World Economy and International Relations, told Vedomosti. According to him, this could be a good, secure battleship with structural protection that would withstand attacks with most types of drones, but such a vessel has yet to be designed and built. "The ability to design new ships and launch their serial production has been completely lost, and this is the case for all manned ship projects currently being implemented for the US Navy without exception," Kramnik maintained. Therefore, the expert concluded, the Trump-class battleship idea is unlikely to outlive the current administration even if a Republican president succeeds Trump.
Rossiyskaya Gazeta: Gold prices rise 70% over past year
On Tuesday, gold soared past $4,500 per troy ounce, and analysts say it will rise above the psychological level of $5,000 per ounce in 2026. Even if gold prices correct lower, the precious metal will be very expensive going forward.
Gold has risen to a new all-time high of $4,550, the latest exchange data showed. Gold prices stood at below $3,000 per ounce at the start of 2025, therefore gold has so far risen by approximately 70%, yielding such a return to those who had bought it in advance.
Gold prices have been mostly driven by a global liquidity glut, deglobalization, trade wars, expectations of Fed rate cuts, the risk of the Federal Reserve losing its independence amid pressure from the Trump administration, the rapid US sovereign debt growth rate and dollar weakening, according to Mikhail Vasilyev, chief analyst at Sovcombank.
The latest spike in gold prices in the past few days was triggered by yet another bout of geopolitical tensions, this time between the United States and Venezuela, Marina Nikishova, lead economist at Bank Zenit, added. Among other key factors pushing gold prices higher is the strong growth in demand for the metal from global central banks, especially in developing economies. Actually, this, among other aspects, shows a declining confidence in the USD as a global reserve currency as countries attempt to hedge their foreign reserves with something safer or less ephemeral than another currency.
As long as global stability has not been increasing in either geopolitical, economic or trade terms, the above-mentioned drivers behind gold’s rise are highly likely to persist into at least 2026. According to Vasilyev’s estimates, gold prices will climb beyond $5,000 per troy ounce in 2026, and a similar forecast is valid for the next few years as well. "We believe that deglobalization will continue in the next few years, with the United States actively increasing its debt and printing dollars. Therefore, we expect that gold will continue to rise and that its prices will hover above $3,400 to $4,000 per ounce from now on," Vasilyev predicts.
However, gold will hardly keep rising at this year’s pace. "Given the precious metal has reached its record highs, a price correction is inevitable. While we do not expect it to dive, we see a range between $3,900 and $4,000 per ounce as quite possible," Nikishova told Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta: US puts relations with Africa onto commercial tracks
Donald Trump initiated quite an unusual rotation of US ambassadors in as many as 29 countries. African nations account for more than half of that number, with the US president planning a radical diplomatic reform. The United States will focus on getting access to natural resources there and squeezing rivals, mostly China. The White House will no longer prioritize promoting democracy or providing free aid for humanitarian reasons on the Black Continent.
The New York Post said Trump will recall as many as 48 ambassadors. Neither Joe Biden nor Barack Obama reshaped the US diplomatic corps at such a scale. Trump’s critics say he’d better concentrate on filling the existing personnel gaps in countries that are key to the United States’ foreign policy. The country has yet to appoint an ambassador in Germany, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, South Korea, Australia, and, surprisingly, Ukraine.
While the New York Post report has not been formally confirmed and is based on information from sources, the chiefs of US missions in 29 countries have received letters saying that their tenures will expire in January, the AP reported. The move will barely affect US ambassadors in the Western Hemisphere, nor will South Asia see any large-scale changes. Meanwhile, the heads of US diplomatic missions in 15 African countries will leave their posts.
"In the past few years, the United States has shown heightened interest in African countries, primarily in terms of access to their natural resources. I think the removal of ambassadors may indicate that the United States has activated its policy in this direction. Furthermore, the competition for influence over Africa against rivals, mostly China, will intensify. Under these circumstances, humanitarian issues and democracy, which used to serve as ideological wrappers to conceal the true US interests in the region, will likely fade into the background," Sergey Nenashev, a senior research fellow at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute for African Studies, told Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
Kommersant: Dollar falling in Russia and globally
The dollar exchange rate globally has fallen to levels of three months ago amid bearish sentiment as investors anticipate more Fed rate cuts and the declining share of dollar assets in global central banks’ foreign reserves. The USD has been weakening in Russia, too, including because of increased supply from exporters. However, analysts argue that the recent dollar weakening is unsustainable and that the USD will return to the level of between 78 and 82 rubles per/$1 ahead of the New Year holidays.
On December 23, DXY fell to as low as 97.85 points, or the lowest level since October 3, data from Investing.com showed. Over the past two days, the US currency dipped by 0.8% and has weakened by 2.3% over the past month.
Analysts question the sustainability of the dollar weakening trend as they say the USD volatility in Russia may rise. Alexey Mikheyev, investment strategist at VTB My Investments, said the global dollar rate will climb higher if investors flee risk assets. The euro rate can return to $1.15 in the next few months, which would push the USD rate in Russia higher too, he told Kommersant. "In the first quarter of 2026, the USD could trade at 85-90 rubles," Mikheyev said.
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