MOSCOW, December 18. /TASS/: Russia's ruling party formally endorses President Vladimir Putin's nomination as independent candidate for re-election; Brussels sprouts yet another package of anti-Russian sanctions; and Ukraine seen planning counteroffensive 2.0 for 2024. These stories topped Monday’s newspaper headlines across Russia.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Candidate Putin seeking re-election support from diverse voter groups
The 21st congress of United Russia has formally announced its support for Vladimir Putin’s nomination for re-election as president, although the candidate himself will run as an independent without party affiliation. In his speech, Putin urged members of the ruling party to put forward the country’s best people with diverse views as their candidates in upcoming elections. United Russia remains the core of the system of people’s democracy, which combines multiple parties with continuity in the governing authorities. The presidential campaign will be marked by a conservative tone, featuring a maximum range of systemic partisan political structures surrounding an independent, non-party main candidate.
Given that the December 16 meeting of a group of activists who formally nominated Putin was as routine as possible, the question emerges as to which scenario and style his presidential campaign will follow. According to experts, this is not particularly significant, as the key factor is that it will be as conservative as possible and the incumbent president himself will ultimately determine the contours of his campaign. Sergey Obukhov, head of analytics for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF), told Nezavisimaya Gazeta that the scenario will either be completely conservative and routine or semi-conservative. According to him, there is still a chance that candidates from non-parliamentary parties may emerge.
Political strategist Konstantin Kalachev told the newspaper that no innovative scenario should be expected. "From the very beginning it was clear that the campaign will be reserved and conservative." According to the expert, there will be "no unexpected candidates, no battles of ideas, but rather a plebiscite in support of the policy course being implemented."
Alexey Makarkin, first vice president of the Center for Political Technologies, reiterated that the campaign has not yet started. "The Direct Line [Putin’s annual Q&A session with Russian citizens] was held in a calm and business-like manner. The general message was sent: an anti-Western and pro-government course, supporting traditional family values, focusing on the special military operation, caring about the people, and so on. That said, everything is being done with a[n overarching] tone of moderation." The expert pointed out that the government must gain the attention and garner the support of widely diverse audiences of voters who can be effectively reached only by using highly diverse types of rhetoric. So, while the campaign’s general framework has been determined, the accents to be applied in appealing to each specific voter audience will be the responsibility of the candidate’s electoral proxies during debates and campaign swings through various regions of the country.
Vedomosti: Diamonds not forever as Brussels sprouts 12th package of anti-Russian sanctions
After Kiev responded positively to Vienna’s demands and temporarily removed Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank from its list of "international sponsors of war," EU countries voted unanimously to approve the bloc’s 12th package of anti-Russian sanctions. The new restrictions ban diamonds for jewelry production and plug a number of loopholes for dodging sanctions.
European politicians, by using sanctions, above all are responding not to the interests of ordinary voters but to those of specific groups driven by narrow ideological motives, Vadim Trukhachev, associate professor of international relations at the Russian State University for Humanities, said. "They still believe that a river can cut through rock, that economic pressure will sooner or later wear Russia down, and that then it will be possible to dictate their terms [to Moscow]," he elaborated.
According to the political scientist, Austria and Switzerland may serve as potential mediators, as they are not NATO members nor do they provide direct military aid to Ukraine.
The introduction of the 12th set of EU sanctions will have only a minimal impact on Russia’s economy and its ability to continue providing essential goods for carrying out the special military operation in Ukraine, Trukhachev thinks. The sanctions measures are more likely to affect the countries producing precious stones, such as Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands, but their overall impact will not be substantial, he thinks.
Vladislav Belov, head of the Center for German Studies at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, thinks that, in the future, the EU will continue to follow its traditional path of adopting only focused economic measures against certain Russian individuals and business entities. The expert did not rule out that, in the new year, the Brussels bureaucracy will try to create the legal grounds for confiscating not only revenues earned on frozen Russian assets but the assets themselves, both state-owned and private.
However, in his opinion, the EU’s sanctions are far less effective as instruments of economic pressure than those applied by the US, Canada, Australia, the UK and Switzerland.
Kommersant: Ukrainian armed forces gearing up for counteroffensive 2.0 in 2024
The West is losing hope for a resolution of the Ukrainian conflict that would benefit Kiev. According to the Financial Times, in their zeal to support Ukraine, Western leaders initially discounted the potential difficulties of a clash with Russia, which ultimately resulted in the failed Ukrainian counteroffensive. The Kiev regime is now urgently trying to spin the adverse media coverage back in its favor to justify new arms shipments. As Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said, this is about the onset of winter, not a crisis. A new Ukrainian counteroffensive is becoming the latest theme for the Kiev regime, which says that such a move is contingent upon the West fulfilling Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny’s lengthy wish list for more weapons.
After analyzing Kiev’s arms requests for next year, German security expert Nico Lange told Die Welt that it appears Ukraine is gearing up to launch another counteroffensive. In his opinion, the types of weapons listed are intended above all for offensive combat operations.
Last week, Russian First Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Dmitry Polyansky said that, having rejected peace talks, the Kiev regime had lost the opportunity to come to a favorable agreement and Russia will now strive only to achieve Ukraine’s capitulation. "Ukraine has squandered its chances for such a favorable off-ramp, any possible deal now will be reflecting its capitulation," the Russian diplomat wrote on the X social media platform (formerly Twitter). Earlier, he noted that the Zelensky regime was effectively in its death throes, while the US, according to Polyansky, is preparing to walk away from its policy of assisting Ukraine, leaving Zelensky and his associates to twist in the wind.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Finland opens its military bases to host US troops
An agreement between Helsinki and Washington allowing the US to quickly deploy its troops on Finnish soil will be signed on Monday, December 18. Earlier, a similar document was signed between the US and Sweden, which is still not yet officially a NATO member. It seems that relations between Russia and its northern neighbor will become complicated. Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Finland’s accession to NATO will trigger problems and reiterated that the Leningrad Military District on Russia’s border with Finland will be re-established.
Vladimir Batyuk, head of the Center for Military and Political Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute for US and Canadian Studies, gave high marks to the combat ability of the Finnish army in a commentary for Nezavisimaya Gazeta. "Its potential is quite sufficient to defend the country. However, it is hardly likely to manage any offensive operations on its own," the expert said.
Batyuk noted that this agreement with Finland was quite expected given that the Nordic country has joined NATO. "Naturally, being the US’ official ally, the country should provide its facilities to the Americans for temporary use during drills. Another matter is that sometimes nothing is more permanent than temporary measures. If US troops remain in Finland then, accordingly, Russia’s attitude cannot but change. Naturally, response measures will follow also if US nuclear weapons are deployed in that country," he explained.
Kommersant: Experts weigh in on chances of restored air traffic from Russia to Europe
European Union statistics office Eurostat has noted that the EU saw a doubling in passenger air traffic in 2022, up to 820 mln people, while this year the International Air Transport Association (IATA) expects this data point to grow by approximately another 20%. It is difficult to estimate how much Russians contributed to this because they now mostly fly to Europe via third countries. Experts say that travel to the EU has grown by 15-30%, but the spread of quantitative assessments is from 2 mln to 4-5 mln people. This is significantly below the level in 2019, when 10 mln Russians visited Europe. France, Spain, Italy, Greece and Cyprus remain the most popular destinations. In the future, the popularity of European destinations will depend on the accessibility of visas, experts note; so far, the share of Russian applicants being denied EU visas has not surpassed 10%.
Dmitry Gorin, vice president of the Russian Travel Industry Union, thinks that tourist travel to the EU this year has grown by 15-30% compared to last year’s low baseline, while the difference with the 2019 level is about 80%. The expert thinks that this growth is related to the stabilized situation with the issuance of visas, tourists adapting to payments abroad, and foreign carriers entering the Russian market. Flights to Europe are mainly carried out via layovers in countries of the post-Soviet space, the Middle East and Turkey.
He notes that a total of 17 out of the 27 Schengen countries continue issuing visas to Russians. According to Kommersant’s sources in the expert community, if EU countries continue to issue visas to Russians at the same rate as in 2023, the passenger flow to Europe will grow by 20-30% in 2024.
