MOSCOW, October 8. /TASS/. The EU is rushing to transform itself into an analogue of NATO ahead of elections in Germany and France, as the bloc gives the go-ahead for yet another sanctions package on Russia. Meanwhile, Germany is seeking to resume energy purchases from Russia. These stories topped Thursday's newspaper headlines across Russia.
Izvestia: EU rushing to transform itself into NATO-like bloc amid alleged Russia threat
The European Commission (EC) is seeking an analogue of the North Atlantic Treaty’s Article 4 before a potential change of power in France and Germany, the European Parliament told Izvestia. In NATO’s documents, this clause provides for urgent consultations between allies in case of threats. Brussels fears that Eurosceptics who oppose the strengthening of the EC's powers will come to power in Paris and Berlin. Until this happens, European bureaucratic hawks are trying to shape the EU's foreign policy on NATO, the Russian Foreign Ministry noted.
On October 6, the EC proposed abolishing the right of veto in the adoption of sanctions and the admission of new EU members. Last month, EC President Ursula von der Leyen proposed an Emergency Security Protocol as a mechanism for consultations in the event of threats. The EC is hurrying to do this ahead of the change of power in France and Germany in 2027, Fernand Kartheiser, a member of the European Parliament from Luxembourg, told Izvestia. "She [von der Leyen] is probably looking to act so swiftly precisely before major government changes take place in Germany and France. <...> Public opinion will hardly embrace such a scenario easily, given the current atmosphere of hysteria in Europe. Such an EU-wide step will be perceived by the general public as dangerous," he said.
Kartheiser’s fellow MEP from Bulgaria, Petar Volgin, expressed a similar opinion as he said "the process of the EU transforming into NATO 2.0 has already begun." At the same time, the mass vote for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) shows that more people are increasingly distancing themselves categorically from the militarist policy course being imposed by Brussels and a number of European governments, the politician noted.
Germany should hold a regular parliamentary election in 2029, but the idea of an early dissolution of the Bundestag is becoming increasingly popular. The opposition AfD party is polling at over 30%, while German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has a record-low approval rating. There is political ground already for a snap vote, said political analyst Yegor Belyachkov, who specializes in German studies.
The initiatives put forward by the EU will be considered as soon as the EU leaders’ summit in mid-October, Thierry Mariani, a French MEP, told Izvestia. "The European Commission is in a hurry, and I guess I know why. It is aware that Marine Le Pen could win in France. Therefore, it is seeking to settle things now, before the French express their opinion," the politician noted.
According to Vladislav Maslennikov, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Department of European Affairs, "the hawkish wing of the European bureaucracy has long been trying to shape the EU’s insufficiently anti-Russian, as they view it, foreign policy on NATO." "Any incident, be it an unidentified drone or problems with Internet connectivity, is automatically blamed on Russia’s 'hybrid' activities," the diplomat explained. "Clearly, all this hysteria does not at least contribute to ensuring stability and security on our western borders," he argued.
Vedomosti: EU approves 22nd sanctions package on Russia
The European Union has adopted a 22nd package of anti-Russian sanctions as EU ambassadors approved it on Wednesday. The measure will soon have to be approved by the EU Council before it comes into effect. This time around, more than 1,500 legal entities and individuals, mostly with ties to the Russian defense industry and the manufacturing of dual-use items, were sanctioned. The blacklisted individuals will be barred from entering the EU, while all their assets on EU soil will be frozen.
Even as the 22nd package does not include any brand-new trade and economic restrictions, it will be the largest ever in terms of the number of Russian individuals and legal entities blacklisted simultaneously, a source in Brussels told TASS. So far, approximately 3,000 individuals and legal entities have been added to the EU’s sanctions list.
The latest sanctions package does not include any industry-wide restrictions as it introduces personal, albeit broad, sanctions, Artyom Sokolov, a senior research fellow at the MGIMO International Studies Institute, told Vedomosti. Tellingly enough, Brussels no longer weighs any deeper sanctions as their effect, including on the EU itself, will be ineffective. Moreover, the fact that the 22nd package is being imposed proves that the range of restrictions has been exhausted. As regards restrictions against Russian lawmakers, numerous Duma members are under sanctions already, but symbolically, recent statements from the EU’s diplomacy chief Kaja Kallas represent a step toward further escalation, as the most vital institution of Russia’s legislative power may be sanctioned, the expert said. According to him, even as the EU lacks any coherent reasons for doing so, Russia has already grown used to similar measures by Brussels, while the State Duma’s functioning will be unaffected by the new restrictions.
The 22nd package of anti-Russian sanctions marks a shift from sectoral restrictions to targeted measures, Alexander Kamkin, an associate professor at the Financial University under the Russian Government, believes. Furthermore, it shows that the EU has exhausted the potential of economic sanctions as it mostly focuses on restrictions on Russia’s military-industrial sector--a move that European governments use to frighten their electorate with--while the imposition of sanctions against the defense industry effectively acknowledges Russia’s achievements in this sphere, the expert argued. Restrictions against Duma members, including those representing Russia’s new regions, were an expected move, Kamkin said, given the EU’s staunchly negative stance toward all government officials in those regions. However, it would be incorrect to suggest that these sanctions could in any way disrupt the State Duma’s operations, Kamkin concluded.
Izvestia: Germany seeking to resume Russian energy imports
Amid underground storage facilities being depleted and gas prices soaring in Europe, Germany sees a clearer benefit in resuming Russian energy purchases. European sources told Izvestia that Germany is interested in restoring energy supplies from Russia. "It would be much better if we could buy energy from Russia again as we did 10 to 20 years ago," one of the sources argued.
Another source said Germany is ready to import gas via the surviving leg of Nord Stream 2: such a scenario would be possible if the conflict in Ukraine ends, he added. "There are all necessary technical capabilities to restart the pipeline, even as no meaningful negotiations are currently being conducted with the Russian side," he noted.
Unless Germany reopens the surviving leg of Nord Stream 2, it will fail to keep its industries operating as before, Steffen Kotre, a member of the German parliament from AfD, told Izvestia. "Germany will no longer be able to run its industrial base the way it was five or six years ago," the parliamentarian pointed out. "We can already see that happening. Falling gas and electricity consumption is clearly due solely to the shutdown of industrial facilities that have become too expensive. Say, in the field of ammonia fertilizers and, of course, everywhere in the chemical industry. Production is being moved to where it is cheaper. And large enterprises are expanding their sites abroad," he added.
In these circumstances, AfD which is leading nationwide opinion polls is openly calling for the repair of Nord Stream. The issue will be discussed at a potential Russia-US-Germany business forum in 2027 as announced by Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund and Special Presidential Envoy for Economic Cooperation with Foreign Countries, Kotre said.
A full ban on Russian LNG imports from early January may trigger a price spike, and in winter, gas prices on exchanges could easily rise above $1,000 per 1,000 cubic meters and remain there through the season, Igor Yushkov, an expert at the Financial University under the Russian Government and the National Energy Security Fund, told Izvestia. Only two unlikely scenarios - a warm winter or the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and stabilization of exports from Qatar - could prevent prices from rising, he said.
In the longer term, the market balance will be achieved not due to the influx of new gas, but through a further decline in its consumption in Europe, as was already the case in 2021-2023, the expert argued. On the one hand, the wave of deindustrialization suits Brussels, helping it to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. On the other hand, amid economic problems, Eurosceptics and forces demanding the return of energy resources from Russia are gaining political weight. The Czech SPD party, for one, which came to power in 2025, advocates for the resumption of purchases of Russian oil and gas. Slovakia too is actively seeking to maintain energy imports from Russia.
Vedomosti: Rumors behind plague case in Russia’s Siberian region explained
Rospotrebnadzor is completing a range of preventive measures in the Irkutsk Region, Irkutsk and Shelekhov after a female employee of the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute died on the night of October 1, Russia’s sanitary watchdog said on October 7. No health implications related to infectious diseases have been found, it added. Earlier, Rospotrebnadzor said she had been diagnosed with pneumonia of undetermined etiology. A broader probe did not reveal any microorganisms associated with her professional activities either. The World Health Organization (WHO) is monitoring the situation, its Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus wrote on X.
Plague, including pneumonic, is much less contagious than COVID-19, Andrey Pozdnyakov, an infectious disease expert at Invitro, explained to Vedomosti. It is caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis that does not spread over large distances, he said. Consequently, the contagiousness index for plague is significantly lower than that of coronavirus, influenza, or measles, and airborne transmission requires fairly close contact with an infected person. For example, during a recent outbreak of pneumonic plague in Uganda, only two out of 20 people who had been in contact with patients contracted the disease from two deceased patients, Pozdnyakov recalled.
The experience of COVID-19 is not applicable here, Denis Volkov, a sociologist, agreed: back then, a large-scale epidemic broke out, and general lockdowns and disruptions to the usual way of life aggravated people’s anxiety. And the anxiety triggered by the pandemic almost completely subsided two to three years later, he noted.
Panic against the backdrop of news about the situation in the Irkutsk Region started to set in amid coverage in foreign media outlets, Nikolay Bespalov, director for development at RNC Pharma think tank, said. He described the information in overseas media as far-fetched.
US President Donald Trump, too, commented on the situation as he announced a phone call "very soon" with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. His offer of assistance was not the only response from Washington as the US Department of State and other federal agencies said they were monitoring the situation. The State Department, for one, advised US citizens in Russia to leave the country immediately on its page on X as it also urged others not to travel there, issuing a Level 4 advisory. The European Union expressed similar concerns, while the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it was in contact with Moscow over the epidemiological situation.
Pavel Koshkin, a senior researcher at the US and Canadian Studies Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, sees a deliberate attempt to smear Russia behind the latest US rhetoric. According to him, Washington has responded to the uproar surrounding the Irkutsk incident amid a lack of information. Statements from the United States have been primarily precautionary, preventive, and formal, he said.
Rossiyskaya Gazeta: Experts weigh in on depletion of oil reserves and crude prices
Seven months into the Middle East crisis, global oil inventories have almost been exhausted, Bloomberg quoted CEO of the world’s largest oil company, Saudi Aramco, Amin Nasser as saying at the Energy Intelligence Forum in London. A similar assessment was voiced by the chief executive of the world’s largest oil trader, Vitol Group, Russel Hardy. According to him, Western nations have virtually exhausted their available oil reserves amid geopolitical conflicts in the Middle East. This and a shortage of available tankers may push global prices to $200 per barrel, he argued.
Global oil inventories currently stand at less than 6 billion barrels. However, Nasser noted, only 10% of this amount is actually available, with the remainder serving as the operational minimum required for the infrastructure to function. Commercial stocks include crude held in pipelines, tankers, port tanks, depots, storage facilities, and oil refineries. These volumes are in constant use and must be constantly replenished, but withdrawal rates currently outpace replenishment levels.
Besides, Oleg Zhirnov, investment and capital market partner at Kept, told Rossiyskaya Gazeta, a substantial amount of oil in pipelines or storage facilities is needed for those to operate properly. And it cannot be tapped because a minimum fill level must be maintained, he added.
Approximately 1 billion barrels of oil have been drawn from global stockpiles since the Middle East conflict erupted, according to data from the International Energy Agency (IEA). In August, the average rate of drawdown was 3.1 million bpd, and this pace could rise to 4-5 million bpd in the fall, a trend also fueled by the escalating global diesel crisis. If the drawdown of oil reserves were halted, there would be an immediate supply shortfall for consumers, and prices could inevitably surge, potentially reaching $150 per barrel or even higher, Zhirnov warned.
Vladimir Chernov, an analyst at Freedom Global, agrees that Brent prices could rise to $150 per barrel if supplies from stockpiles stop and the oil deficit of several million barrels per day persists. Further large-scale disruptions could trigger brief spikes to even higher levels, and the risk of prices climbing to $200 cannot be ruled out, though that would already represent a crisis scenario, he concluded.
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