Press review: Russia anchors global energy market and Israel balks at peace with Hezbollah

MOSCOW, September 27. /TASS/. Putin reasserts Russia’s role as a stabilizing force in the global energy market, Israel says no to any de-escalation talks with Lebanon, and Republicans accuse Ukraine of meddling in US election. These stories topped Friday’s newspaper headlines across Russia.
 
Russia continues to be a dependable supplier of energy products to the global market, playing a stabilizing role, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the plenary session of the Russian Energy Week international forum on September 26. As European and North American economies continue to struggle mightily amid their own sanctions, and as new multipolar models of developing the energy sector are already being shaped worldwide, it is BRICS countries that will be the economic powerhouses of the 21st century, the Russian leader noted. That said, he stressed that by introducing sanctions, the West had only hastened the development of alternative solutions in Russia – from managing logistics to international transactions. As for the global energy market, experts note how shaky it is now because countries are forced to be guided by politics instead of economic profit.
Inside Russia, particular attention is being given to challenges in the gas sector. Currently, only one major pipeline, the Power of Siberia, connects Russia to China, while the construction of additional pipelines, such as Power of Siberia 2 and 3, will take several years, said Valery Andrianov, associate professor at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation. LNG supplies are being hindered by a shortage of gas tankers, making it difficult to form a “shadow fleet,” that is, vessels that sail under a neutral flag without resorting to insurance services of Western companies. Nevertheless, increased production of liquefied natural gas will become one of the main development trends of the global fuel and energy complex, Freedom Finance Global analyst Vladimir Chernov told the newspaper.
Russia’s growing production has also driven demand for electricity, economist Andrey Loboda explained. This industrial growth has been fueled by import substitution, increased defense production, and growth in the transportation and other key industries, he added.
 
Israel does not intend to hold any talks on de-escalation on the Israeli-Lebanese border. Tel Aviv’s goal remains the same: to “destroy Hezbollah.” This was Israel’s response to peace proposals from the US and France.
Rossiyskaya Gazeta noted that while Lebanon is ready to “take serious efforts with international partners” toward peace, Israel is skeptical about any peace negotiations.
According to Sari Hanafi, a sociology professor and director of the Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies at the American University of Beirut, inside Lebanon, people are showing incredible solidarity. The scholar noted to Izvestia that everyone in the country, regardless of their support for Hezbollah or lack thereof, realizes that it is Israel dragging Lebanon into war. He thinks that many in the country believe Hezbollah must stand with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. In Hanafi’s opinion, about 70% of the population, if not more, support Hezbollah’s actions.
He thinks that Hezbollah is also winning people over because the movement continues to deliver strikes only on Israel’s military targets so as not to provoke the Jewish state to tougher retaliatory attacks on civilians and infrastructure.
 
On September 25, Fox News reported that US House Speaker Mike Johnson (Republican, Louisiana) had written a letter to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky demanding that Ukrainian Ambassador to the US Oksana Markarova be immediately dismissed. Johnson and some Republicans in Congress think that Zelensky’s trip to an ammunition factory in Pennsylvania organized by Markarova was politicized and appears to be an attempt to interfere in the US election. Simultaneously, Chairman of the House Oversight Committee James Comer (Republican, Kentucky) announced an investigation into Zelensky’s visit to the factory. “The Committee seeks to determine whether the Biden-Harris Administration attempted to use a foreign leader to benefit Vice President Harris’ presidential campaign and, if so, necessarily committed an abuse of power,” Comer wrote on Wednesday in a letter to the White House, Justice Department and the Pentagon.
Political scientist Malek Dudakov thinks that Republicans are not so much miffed by Zelensky’s visit itself as with his criticism of Trump and running mate Vance right before it. He believes that Markarova is unlikely to face any sanctions. However, if Trump becomes president and the Republicans retain the House and win the Senate, it is quite possible that they will attempt to facilitate her departure from the US. As for providing new aid packages to Ukraine, they may be cut short suddenly following Trump’s victory. In the event of Harris’ win, support will diminish gradually.
Attitudes toward Ukraine are part of a deep cultural war in the US, said expert at the Russian International Affairs Council Alexey Naumov. He explained that in reality, the Republicans do not really believe that Zelensky was campaigning for Harris but they are annoyed about how the trip to Pennsylvania was arranged. The expert noted that regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election, the country’s policy toward Ukraine will begin to change because the Ukrainian track has become part of a domestic political standoff in the US.
Both Trump and Harris will try to gradually shift the greater share of the burden of financing the Kiev regime to Europe, the expert concluded.
 
Currently, there is no chance for unfriendly countries to work with BRICS, the Russian Foreign Ministry told Izvestia. The diplomatic agency stressed that the introduction of illegitimate unilateral sanctions against countries who aspire to conduct an independent course does not sit well with the group’s members. The diplomats noted that partnership within the group’s format is not directed against anyone, while its members cooperate on a mutually beneficial basis without any confrontational agenda. Experts do not exclude the possibility that in the future, BRICS might expand interaction with Western countries. In their opinion, the group’s growing authority and clout on the global stage may inspire them to alter their foreign policy course, including with regard to Russia.
“BRICS is an inclusive structure but naturally, there are criteria concerning the countries capable of becoming the group’s full-fledged members, voiced back at the 2023 Johannesburg summit. One of them is conducting constructive and friendly policy with regard to all BRICS member states. So, given the current geopolitical tensions, it is clear that today the group’s interaction with unfriendly countries is unimaginable,” Viktoriya Panova, head of the BRICS Expert Council and vice rector of the National Research University Higher School of Economics told Izvestia. “If the foreign policy course in any country currently on the unfriendly list changes and they realize that the world consists not only of the US and its allies, then, logically, they will treat Russia differently and are unlikely to be in the list of unfriendly countries,” she added.
“BRICS’ growing authority over recent years is obvious. It is for a good reason that dozens of countries are eyeing joining the group,” Yelena Safronova, senior research fellow at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of China and Contemporary Asia told Izvestia. According to her, the developing world views BRICS as a structure capable of counteracting the dollar diktat, and which stands on principles that are in stark contrast to the political and economic self-centeredness practiced by the West. BRICS does not support sanctions and is seeking its own cooperation formula based on equality, mutual benefit and respect for individual member states, she added.
According to the expert, BRICS’ success and the group’s establishment as a respected global actor must induce unfriendly countries to reconsider their policy with regard to Russia.
 
According to Kommersant, over the first eight months of this year, Russia has increased gas production by 9.3%, to 463.77 bln cubic meters. In August alone it saw a 9.6% growth, to 54.4 bln cubic meters. The highest August increase was registered by Gazprom and Novatek, which began loading products via the Arctic LNG 2 project. The first line of the project produced 347 mln cubic meters in August. Gas production by other independent producers has been noticeably stagnating, which may be the result of oil producers’ obligations under the OPEC+ deal, experts told the newspaper.
According to independent expert Alexander Sobko, the obtained volume of liquefied gas is enough to completely fill three tankers.
The stagnation of oil production is likely due to the need to fulfill commitments under the OPEC+ deal. In August, the companies approached target figures with production decreasing to 9 mln barrels per day which also affected the production dynamics of associated petroleum gas, market players told Kommersant.
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