Press review: US moves to allow strikes inside Russia and Trump, Harris trade debate blows

MOSCOW, September 12. /TASS/. US inches closer to greenlighting Ukraine’s use of long-range missiles to hit targets inside Russia; Trump and Harris square off in first televised debate; and BRICS security summit to shine light on Ukraine. These stories topped Thursday’s newspaper headlines across Russia.
 
On September 11, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy arrived in Kiev to attend the Fourth Summit of the Crimea Platform, an anti-Russian conference that has been held since the peninsula’s accession to Russia. On the previous day, Blinken said he would discuss Ukraine’s request to allow it to use Western-supplied long-range weapons to hit “military targets” inside Russia. Axios said earlier that US President Joe Biden had already authorized such strikes.
Commenting on Blinken’s trip, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov surmised that a decision to let Kiev attack Russia with such weapons had likely already been made. As regards a Russian response, “the special military operation is exactly that response,” Peskov said as he assured reporters that the Russian military has everything it needs to continue it.
Kiev will need US authorization to use the Anglo-French-made Scalp/Storm Shadow cruise missiles it got last year, which have a range of at least 300 km. In addition, Ukraine receives ATACMS ballistic missiles that can hit targets 160 km to 300 km away. Also, the transfer of US-made JASSM air-launched cruise missiles with a range of at least 700 km is currently being discussed.
A source close to the Russian Defense Ministry said Scalp/Storm Shadow and ATACMS missiles are much more difficult for air defenses to take down than Ukrainian drones, which are already being used for strikes on Russian soil. Kiev could potentially receive hundreds of these missiles in just a few months.
Andrey Frolov, an expert with the HSE Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies, told Vedomosti that months-long demands from Ukraine to allow it to use such weapons stem from the fact that the entire Ukrainian strategy is to escalate. While Russia will have to defend a larger area from more sophisticated threats that can fly faster than Ukrainian drones and whose warheads are much more powerful, the new weapons will not turn the tide on the battlefield. Rather, Russia will likely intensify its fight against carriers of air-launched missiles both in the air and at airfields, Frolov explained.
 
The first debate between the two presidential nominees, former US leader Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, was held in the United States on Tuesday. Registered voters who watched the presidential debate agree that Democratic nominee Harris beat Republican Trump by a count of 63%-37%, a CNN poll showed. In the debate, Trump called Harris a horrible negotiator, saying she carried responsibility for precipitating the Ukraine crisis. Also, he criticized the vice president for the chaotic withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and not doing enough to secure America’s borders. Harris came at Trump about the country’s high unemployment rate and blasted him for his willingness to allow Kiev to capitulate.
Earlier, Russian leader Vladimir Putin reiterated that it would ultimately be up to US citizens to select their president, and that Russia has no say in this.
Former analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency Larry Johnson told Izvestia that he believed the debate didn’t matter much as it did not change any minds, only serving to reinforce the perception that the establishment is doing everything it can to keep Trump out of office.
US international law attorney Kline Preston said that, with the election just six weeks away, voters have already made up their minds about who their candidate is, and the debate would not sway them one way or the other. Trump supporters think he won the debate, while Harris backers will call her the victor. Preston sees ABC News as Tuesday’s big loser as he said that the debate’s moderation left a lot to be desired.
While mainstream Western media were divided over the results of the debate, the majority of major networks said Harris was the consensus winner.
Andrey Skriba, associate professor at HSE University, agrees that Harris did look more convincing, especially against the backdrop of the Biden debacle in the last debate, giving the Democrats a much-needed image boost. “Trump did not look worse [than he did in the debate against Biden in June], but he was not any better either. He was weaker in the latest debate because it was easier for her [Harris] to impress voters who were comparing her to Biden,” the analyst said.
 
Key events of a summit of high representatives in charge of security issues from BRICS countries and their partners kicked off in St. Petersburg on Wednesday. Delegates from 21 countries, including Serbia, Turkey and Vietnam, had arrived in Russia to attend the event which was moderated by Russian Security Council Secretary Sergey Shoigu.
In opening remarks at the summit, Shoigu recounted how the West “has been imposing a world order based on rules” which he said run counter to international law. He also called on BRICS to double down on efforts to fight crime in the cybersphere. Prior to the summit, Shoigu told Rossiya-24 television in an interview that the conference would mostly discuss the situation in Ukraine, the Middle East conflict as well as terrorism and the fight against drug trafficking.
Ajit Doval, 79, the current National Security Advisor for the Indian prime minister and an experienced negotiator, was among those who drew the heaviest attention when his trip to St. Petersburg was announced. India Today even insisted that he would meet directly with Putin in Russia to discuss resolving the Ukraine conflict.
In theory, India would not be against joining initiatives toward peace in Ukraine in an effort to bring both conflicting sides to the negotiating table, should there be such an opportunity, head of the Center for the Indian Ocean Region at IMEMO RAS Alexey Kupriyanov said in an interview with Vedomosti. However, India is not willing to provide any guarantees for either of the parties, by sending its peacekeepers, for example, he argued.
Russia in Global Affairs Editor-in-Chief Fyodor Lukyanov says BRICS countries in general want to stay away from the Ukrainian issue. As regards the rules-based order, at BRICS, Russia has been actively opposed to it, with China articulating only partial solidarity, while Iran openly pursues an anti-Western policy, the analyst maintained. The other members of the club would not like BRICS to become an anti-Western alliance. And even Iran and China hew to the position that agreements with the West should be reached, not at any cost though, Lukyanov concluded.
 
Russia may cut the export of certain strategic metals, namely uranium, titanium and nickel. Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed the government to weigh such a measure in response to restrictions on Russian imports at a meeting on September 11.
Russian nickel giant Nornickel has a 19% share in the global high-grade nickel market. In 2020, Russia’s largest producer and exporter of titanium, VSMPO-Avisma, had an estimated 25% share of the global market. While Rosatom did not report its uranium exports last year, it said in an annual report that Russia’s state-owned nuclear corporation accounted for 17% of the global market for nuclear fuel cycle products and services.
Chief strategist at Vector X brokerage Maxim Khudalov argues that all these metals are a major source of export revenues, therefore an outright export ban is unlikely. He believes that Russia could more likely introduce export-licensing measures which would make it harder for Western businesses to buy raw materials from Russia, as well as strengthen China’s positions in its imminent trade war with the West. While the move could push metal prices higher globally, it is too early to expect any spike as the market is currently anticipating a global recession, he said.
Russia has enough share of the global market for nickel, titanium and uranium to trigger a global price rise if it decides to limit exports, independent analyst Boris Sinitsyin believes. The market for solid raw materials is special as there can be conventional substitution only, while uranium stands alone due to the specifics of its consumption and its availability could affect political decisions regarding the sources of power generation across economies, he maintained.
 
Benchmark Brent prices going south from $80 to $70 per barrel may affect Russian budget revenues and the country’s oil majors only if crude prices stay lower for longer. The Urals blend for August traded at $70.27 per barrel, as per the Economic Development Ministry. While Brent is trading at almost the same price, this will not necessarily translate to Russian oil revenues plummeting.
Valery Andrianov, associate professor at the Financial University under the Russian government, explained that in August Urals traded at a $12 discount to Brent in the ports of Primorsk and Novorossiysk, or the narrowest since last September. Russia based its budget on an even wider discount of $15 per barrel with Brent trading at $75 per barrel, this actually means that Russia’s Urals oil prices could fall to $60.
Portfolio manager at Alfa-Capital Dmitry Skryabin agrees that the Urals price of $60 per barrel would be equivalent to how much oil revenues Russia will need to balance its budget, even if no additional windfall will be reaped.
National Energy Security Fund Director Konstantin Simonov argues that the US election would have a big impact on oil prices, and until November 5 the Biden administration will try to keep oil prices lower, therefore no miracle can be expected on the horizon until then and prices could even fall below $70, he warns.
Andrianov said with a recession still far away for the United States, and the situation in the Chinese economy not being too pessimistic, oil prices could well recover to $80 per barrel by the end of 2024, given current geopolitical risks.
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