MOSCOW, September 29. /TASS/. The EU is struggling to fulfill its stated objective of providing Kiev with interceptors for its Patriot systems; the US Republicans are highly likely to face a major defeat in the November congressional elections; and a pro-Western politician has temporarily assumed power in Serbia, while the former president prepares to become prime minister. These stories topped Tuesday’s newspaper headlines across Russia.

 

Izvestia: EU unable to urgently increase military support for Ukraine

The EU will not be able to provide Kiev with the interceptors it needs for its Patriot systems. The few missiles currently available are needed by Greece, Spain, and the US, and, according to media reports, the EU is refusing to transfer them to Ukraine. At a meeting in Brussels on September 28, EU defense and foreign ministers were unable to reach an agreement on transferring this type of ammunition to Kiev, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas acknowledged. However, experts believe the European Commission may personally press countries that possess the weapons Kiev needs. The EU could indeed exert pressure on certain countries, including Greece, to transfer interceptor missiles to Ukraine, Luxembourgish European Parliament lawmaker Fernand Kartheiser told Izvestia. However, he noted that the West has only a small number of them left due to the conflict in the Middle East. "Ukraine will no longer receive significant quantities of missiles and will not be able to produce enough of them on its own - if it is even capable of manufacturing them at all. It will remain vulnerable to air attacks. Its logistical and economic infrastructure could be systematically destroyed with minimal resistance," Kartheiser emphasized. The main problem for the EU is that it lacks sufficient interceptors for air defense, long-range strike capabilities, and intelligence and targeting data, Pavel Anisimov, deputy director of the International Relations and Political Science Institute at the Russian State University for the Humanities, pointed out.

According to him, some of the most scarce systems are those for the US Patriot system. Therefore, Brussels continues to purchase American weapons for Ukraine while simultaneously attempting to reduce its dependence on a single supplier by jointly developing more affordable missile and air defense systems. In turn, Moscow Pedagogical State University’s History and Politics Institute Deputy Director Vladimir Shapovalov stressed that Brussels will most likely continue to look for missiles for air defense. However, only a few countries, including Germany, Poland, and the Baltic and Scandinavian states, will meet European demands, the expert noted.

Meanwhile, the rest will attempt to block this decision so as not to weaken their own military capabilities. EU countries have long since abandoned a common stance on Ukraine: Bulgaria, Hungary, and Slovakia have officially refused to supply Kiev with weapons.

 

Vedomosti: Donald Trump's party very likely to suffer crushing defeat in November elections

US President Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans are bound to lose their majority in the House of Representatives following the November 3 election, and the possibility of them losing their majority in the Senate seems plausible as well, Charlie Cook, founder of the Cook Political Report, one of the most authoritative political rating aggregators in the US, stressed.

Historically, the president’s party has almost always lost House of Representatives seats in midterm elections while retaining its Senate positions. However, there have been instances when the president’s allies lost their majorities in both chambers following midterms: in 1918, 1946, 1954, 1994, and 2006. Even if the president’s party loses only the House, it will likely hamper most of the administration’s major initiatives and reforms since that is where all tax and budget legislation starts.

The Republicans’ chances there are limited both by Trump’s unpopularity and by the low approval ratings of the party’s candidates, political scientist and American studies expert Malek Dudakov told Vedomosti, recalling that according to the Real Clear Politics aggregator, only 38.7% of citizens support the president. The expert noted that the Republicans’ main problem is the economy and their inability to explain to voters how they intend to fix it. "There is very little time left before the election, and it is unlikely that the Republican Party will be able to change the situation in its favor in that time," Dudakov said.

The Republicans’ impending defeat in the House of Representatives is a predictable outcome, Pavel Koshkin, a senior researcher at the US and Canadian Studies Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, noted. However, there is another important aspect: whether the Republicans, even while in the minority, will be able to occasionally thwart the Democrats’ agenda following the election. According to the expert, if the margin of seats is small, this will certainly happen, just as the Democrats are doing now. "It seems to me that the Democrats are unlikely to win by a large margin. In addition to taking control of the House of Representatives, they may gain a small majority in the Senate. Therefore, Trump will retain his leverage," Koshkin stressed.

 

Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Pro-Western politician temporarily assumes power in Serbia

Aleksandar Vucic, who served as Serbia’s president for nine years, has resigned. This marks the beginning of a political maneuver that, if successful, will allow him to assume the role of prime minister and remain in power. Ana Brnabic will serve as acting president at least until the parliamentary elections on October 25. She is a close ally of Vucic. However, unlike him, Brnabic has criticized Russia for its policies toward Ukraine. She also has a reputation as a staunch supporter of closer ties with the EU.

Vucic’s term was officially set to expire in May 2027. After that, he would have lost the opportunity to remain in power. The country’s constitution prohibits him from running for a third term. Therefore, the former president will attempt to return to the prime minister’s office, which he held from 2014 to 2017.

Vucic may well be successful in carrying out this political maneuver, Yakov Smirnov, a research fellow at the Europe Institute under the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Nezavisimaya Gazeta. "Vucic’s chances of winning the election and becoming prime minister are very high. His electorate remains loyal to him, and the fragmented opposition parties have failed in recent years to put forward a clear candidate capable of unseating the former president and his party in the election," he noted.

As for Brnabic, her political views will not prevent her from pursuing the former president’s political agenda. "Brnabic is the ideal candidate for Vucic as acting president. She lacks significant political autonomy, and she is not very popular in Serbia. None of the political players in Serbia or abroad regard her as a serious figure. This is because she is, in a political sense, entirely Vucic’s creation, possessing agency only within the framework of the political system under Vucic’s control," the expert explained.

 

Rossiyskaya Gazeta: Reasons behind OpenAI's decision to pause training of AI models

OpenAI, one of the leaders in the modern AI industry, has temporarily suspended the training of new models following a series of incidents involving unpredictable behavior by its AI agents and promises to resume training after implementing additional security measures. These incidents are not isolated glitches but rather systemic issues with the controllability of autonomous AI agents - programs that independently set subgoals and determine how to achieve them without step-by-step human supervision.

OpenAI and its rival AI company Anthropic are currently working with independent security experts to investigate tens of thousands of incidents in which their models carried out problematic actions, such as bypassing content filters, creating third-party message boards, escaping isolated test environments, hijacking websites, and attempting to circumvent control systems through self-prompting.

Some experts view OpenAI's situation primarily as a PR stunt. "For OpenAI, this high-profile pause addresses several problems at once. The narrative is that their models are so powerful that they have to be shut down. You couldn’t ask for better publicity. At the same time, the company appears more responsible in the eyes of regulators just as the US is debating regulations for the industry," Oleg Rogov, head of a group at the AIRI Institute, told Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

Meanwhile, Pro-Vision Communications CEO Vladimir Vinogradov believes OpenAI’s decision marks the industry's first "digital psychotherapy" session. "The companies pushed the big red button. Amid the arms race, they paused due to the unpredictable actions of the agents. For the global AI industry as a whole, this signals the end of the venture capitalist-driven era of chaos. Now, investors will demand security protocols and log audits, and the race for speed will give way to a race for predictability," he pointed out.

According to experts in the Russian AI sector, these turbulent developments will only indirectly impact the industry. "Neither OpenAI nor Anthropic officially operates in Russia, and a few months’ pause won’t close the gap between Russian AI models and industry leaders. But there will definitely be some impact. Russian companies that are deploying agents have received a ready-made checklist of what could go wrong: bypassing filters, escaping an isolated environment, and unauthorized data collection. This means that, from day one, an agent should be given exactly as much access as the task requires," Alexander Danilov, founder and CEO of Nodul, a platform for creating AI agents, stressed.

 

Kommersant: Decline in gold prices due to concerns over persistently high oil prices

Gold prices tumbled by more than 3% at the start of the week, falling below $4,150 per ounce. This decline was driven by speculative trading amid surging oil prices and anticipation of a potential Federal Reserve rate increase in October. Meanwhile, strategic investors, concerned about the US government’s lack of fiscal discipline, continue to boost their portfolios’ gold holdings. As a result, gold ETF holdings exceeded 3,130 metric tons, marking the highest level since early March.

Last weekend, US President Donald Trump announced that he was rejecting Iran’s proposal to open the Strait of Hormuz and cease hostilities. As a result, on Monday, the price of the nearest Brent crude oil futures contract climbed by 4.3% to $108.8 per barrel. "Hopes for a rapid recovery in supplies have faded, and oil prices have risen again. This is currently a negative signal for gold, as high energy prices fuel accelerating inflation and increase the likelihood that the Federal Reserve System will have to tighten monetary policy more aggressively," Freedom Global analyst Vladimir Chernov told Kommersant.

At the same time, the price drop is occurring against a backdrop of persistently high demand from professional investors. According to Bloomberg, the total assets of gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs) rose by 8.8 metric tons last Friday, reaching 3,133.6 metric tons. Over the course of a month, these assets grew by nearly 66 tons, returning to levels seen in early March. Inflows into gold ETFs follow a different logic, as they reflect the behavior of strategic investors who take long-term positions, experts pointed out. "Strategic investors continue to buy gold as a hedge against geopolitical fragmentation, rising government debt, the risk of a loss of confidence in fiat currencies, and to further diversify their reserves," independent portfolio manager Alyona Nikolayeva emphasized.

However, such purchases alone cannot trigger an immediate price reversal. Therefore, according to Chernov, with oil prices high, the price of gold could well decline to the 4,000-4,100 dollars per ounce range. A more significant drop would require further deterioration in expectations regarding the Federal Reserve System’s interest rates, as well as an escalation in the Persian Gulf region. "The shipping agreement is more likely to support gold prices by lowering rate expectations than to cause prices to plummet due to the disappearance of the geopolitical premium. In August, signs of progress in the Strait of Hormuz gave the metal its strongest daily gain since February," Alina Poptsova, a stock market analyst at Alfa-Capital Asset Management, noted.

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