MOSCOW, April 14. /TASS/. The United States is enforcing a blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, and experts weigh in on what Peter Magyar’s election win could mean for Russia-Hungary ties. Meanwhile, Russia’s Security Council proposes building joint food reserves with friendly economies. These stories topped Tuesday’s newspaper headlines across Russia.
Media: Washington moves to enforce blockade on Strait of Hormuz
After failing to reopen the Strait of Hormuz closed by Iran after the conflict in the Middle East broke out, the United States decided to impose a blockade on it. The US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced that "any vessel entering or departing the blockaded area without authorization is subject to interception, diversion, and capture." Meanwhile, Iran has restricted the Persian Gulf as it allows vessels from friendly countries, including Russia, China, Iraq, Pakistan and India, to pass through the waterway for up to $2 million for a ship to traverse the Strait.
Speaking of the United States, it is seeking to completely shut off Iranian oil exports which have not been affected before. Moreover, US President Donald Trump has even moved to partially lift US sanctions on the Islamic Republic. If Iranian crude exports are blocked, between 1.5 million bpd and 2 million bpd of crude and petroleum products will be lost from the global supply, adding to the already lost 8 million bpd.
Russian National Energy Security Fund head Konstantin Simonov told Rossiyskaya Gazeta that Iran is simply being removed from the oil market now that it has rejected the American rules of the game. He added that the United States will have enough power to block all Iranian oil exports. The expert is confident that the United States is clearly acting in pursuit of its goal to establish global energy dominance, and its Hormuz blockade announcement fits into this scheme.
In addition, the US blockade of the waterway is a way to put pressure on China and India as the largest buyers of oil from Gulf countries, the expert continued. As regards Russia, it will only benefit from rising oil prices in the short term, and the situation is a strategic disadvantage as it is among the countries which refuse to play by American rules in oil trading. Russia is a US rival that Washington cannot control, so the expert cautioned against the re-imposition of US sanctions and additional pressure on Russia.
Yury Lyamin, a senior researcher at the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, doubted that the US fleet and aviation would attack every vessel off the Iranian coast "because it would be useless and risky amid the threat from Iranian coastal missile systems" in an interview with Kommersant. "However, tankers and other large commercial vessels sailing from Iran to China and other markets and back across the Indian Ocean will be very vulnerable to interceptions or attacks from the US fleet in the open sea," he warned.
Media: What Magyar’s election win could mean for Russia-Hungary relations
Peter Magyar, the leader of the Tisza right-wing liberal party, which won a landslide victory in Hungary’s elections, has thanked Russia and China for their respect of the choice made by the local electorate. "They [Russia and China] are as open to pragmatic cooperation as Hungary because geography is geography," the politician, who will soon replace Viktor Orban, ending the latter’s 16-year grip on power, said on April 13. Prior to that, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow respects the choice made by the Hungarians and expects that quite "pragmatic contacts" between Moscow and Budapest will continue under the new Hungarian leadership.
Vadim Trukhachev, an associate professor at the Russian Financial University, views Orban’s defeat as an event that will have implications for Russia. Magyar will not block new sanctions packages on Russia, nor will he move to ease them either, the analyst told Vedomosti. Moreover, Magyar may sever contacts related to the Paks-2 NPP construction and refuse to buy large volumes of gas and oil, including through the Druzhba pipeline. "European politicians, including Magyar, believe that Russian gas can be replaced, albeit not fully. In this context, the special relationship between Russia and Hungary is now over," Trukhachev argued.
Dmitry Ofitserov-Belsky, head of the Baltic Region research group at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ World Economy and International Relations Institute, disagrees. He does not expect Hungary to put an immediate end to key energy projects with Russia, including the Paks-2 NPP project, or to reject Russian hydrocarbons as there are no real alternatives for Hungary for the time being. He lays a special emphasis on Hungary’s role in the Russia-NATO confrontation: in geographical terms, the role is strategic as Hungary, together with Slovakia, breaks the bloc’s eastern flank into the northern and southern segments, and the alliance relies on Budapest’s position for its logistics and infrastructure for a rapid troop deployment.
Mikhail Vedernikov, a leading researcher at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Nezavisimaya Gazeta that the relations between Russia and Hungary will be more pragmatic now. "Magyar will hardly move to reject Russian energy at once <…> for his country is held hostage by its geopolitical position. It will have to discuss oil, gas and nuclear energy with Russia. And the initial remarks from the politician who won show that he takes quite a sober view of the future of the Russia-Hungary relations," the expert said.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Russia’s Security Council proposes building joint food reserves with friendly economies
Attempts by Western countries to take revenge on Asia in military terms as well as to weaken and exhaust Russia have created new realities in international trade in which sea routes have become extremely unsafe, Russian researchers and economists argue. They made this conclusion even before Trump moved to impose a blockade of the Hormuz Strait on Monday. The risk of attacks targeting tankers in straits and Russian vessels almost across the globe has forced Russian officials to rewrite the national transport strategy. It will likely emphasize land routes with Asia and efforts to revive the network of internal freight services using rivers.
"The US fighting for control of oil and logistics has been an element of its strategy to restore global dominance which has been questioned by rapid progress in Asian countries," Sergey Karaganov, Academic Supervisor of the Department of World Economy and International Affairs at the Higher School of Economics (HSE) University, said. According to him, today, we are witnessing an expansion of state piracy at sea. International waterways are becoming increasingly vulnerable amid a global war in the making, the expert explained. In response, Russia should take complex measures toward expanding domestic transport routes and increasing the potential for the transportation along North-South routes.
The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and alternative routes has affected Russia too, for which increasing energy, food and fertilizer exports has been a risky business.
The escalation of the Middle East conflict is posing growing risks for food systems and trade as it causes a tangible negative impact on global food security, Deputy Secretary of Russia’s Security Council Alexander Maslennikov said on Monday. The blockade of the Hormuz Strait, which has already disrupted well-established supply chains in transport and logistics, has been the key factor posing risks to the food security across the region. According to preliminary estimates, if the Hormuz Strait remains blocked for three months or more, regional economies will face food security risks.
"The current situation, on the one hand, poses food security risks to Russia, while on the other hand, it opens up long-term opportunities for Russian agricultural producers," the Russian Security Council argues as it views enhancing cooperation with friendly countries, primarily EAEU and BRICS member states, including by building joint food reserves, as quite relevant for the provision of food security.
Vedomosti: Indonesian leader visits Moscow amid global energy crisis
On April 13, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto held talks with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, while on a working visit to Moscow. This is the third visit to Russia by the politician as the Indonesian head of state and his fifth one-on-one meeting with Putin. The two leaders discussed the prospects of deepening the strategic partnership between Russia and Indonesia, energy security issues, and Russian energy supplies amid the crisis in the Middle East.
Indonesia was interested in buying Russian oil again under the former president Joko Widodo in 2022 against the backdrop of the Ukraine conflict, Alexander Belogoryev of the Institute of Energy and Finance Foundation recalled in an interview with Vedomosti. According to him, Russia could export 100,000-150,000 bpd of oil products to the Indonesian market. "Since the mid-1990s, oil production in Indonesia has declined from 1.6 million bpd to 0.6 million bpd due to the depletion of the old resource base and faltering geological exploration. The country has been a net oil importer since 2003," the expert noted.
Even as Russia has increased oil exports to Indonesia from $210 million to $860 million since 2024, the volume accounts for a mere 5% of the country’s overall demand for crude, Andrey Gnidchenko, leading expert at the Center for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-Term Forecasting, told the newspaper.
While Russia is showing strategic interest in Indonesia and other Southeast Asian markets, it is too early to talk about the region’s longer-term interest in Russian oil, said Yekaterina Koldunova, director of the ASEAN Center at MGIMO University. As soon as the Middle East crisis is over, the United States may return to increased sanctions pressure at any moment, the political analyst warned.
Vedomosti: Gulf countries cut oil production by one-third in March
In March, oil production in Persian Gulf countries dropped by 33% or 8 million bpd from February amid the US and Israeli aggression against Iran, calculations made by Vedomosti based on the latest Monthly Oil Market Report released by OPEC on April 13 show.
According to OPEC’s report, world oil demand averaged 105.7 million bpd in January-March, while global oil supply amounted to 102.9 million bpd. The organization did not provide any breakdown for March, however.
While oil supply exceeded oil demand globally in January and February, the market shifted to a deficit in March, Dmitry Kasatkin, a partner at Kasatkin Consulting, told Vedomosti.
Kirill Bakhtin, chief Russian stock market analyst at BCS World of Investments, put the global oil market deficit in March at 4 million bpd. The situation will worsen in April-May when the season of increased consumption of raw materials begins, Bakhtin argues. Kasatkin estimated the current oil deficit at 5 million bpd, while Alexey Kokin, a senior analyst at Sinara brokerage, predicts that the figure will grow to 7.5 million bpd in April.
At present, crude production is growing in North and South America, Kasatkin and Kokin noted. The current oil prices have triggered an increase in US shale oil production and offshore oil production in Brazil and Guyana, Kasatkin explained.
TASS is not responsible for the material quoted in these press reviews