Press review: Mongolia shoves Putin’s arrest warrant and big deals abound at EEF

MOSCOW, September 4. /TASS/. Mongolia shows world what it thinks about Putin’s ICC arrest warrant; big deals abound at major Russian economic forum; and latest NATO drills meant to counter alleged “Russian threat.” These stories topped Wednesday’s newspaper headlines across Russia.
 
Earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Mongolia and held talks there with his Mongolian counterpart, Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh, before safely returning to Russia. His visit to a country that recognizes the jurisdiction of the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC), and hence the arrest order issued against the Russian leader, was no small deal. Mongolia showed the ICC that it won’t sell Russia out, becoming the first country to officially flout the order.
Not a single country has defied an international court arrest order before. Putin could not travel to South Africa because of a similar warrant in August 2023 when he attended a BRICS summit via video link. His trip to Mongolia, a country that has been developing its relations actively with the West, including the United States, was all the more surprising.
While Mongolian officials have not provided formal explanations, a government official told Western media on the condition of anonymity that as Mongolia imports 95% of its petroleum products and 20% of electricity from its two immediate neighbors, namely Russia and China, it is not in a position to quarrel with either of them.
Such a clarification seems to be enough for the West, as the United States has neither criticized the visit immediately after it ended nor issued any warnings to Mongolia. ICC Spokesperson Fadi El Abdallah promised that the high court would take a look at the situation as he refused to announce any measures against Mongolia, Nezavisimaya Gazeta writes.
“Mongolia should be fine as long as it explains its position. It is known that the statute has a fairly limited jurisdiction and no power to exercise its rulings over individuals. Russia withdrew its signature from the founding statute of the ICC in 2016,” Darya Saprynskaya, a research fellow at the Institute of Asia and Africa at Moscow State University, told Izvestia. According to her, all the talk in the Western media about Putin and the ICC is just another aspect of the ongoing information war.
 
The Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) kicked off on Russky Island in Vladivostok on Tuesday. The event brings together more than 6,000 guests from 76 countries, including China, Malaysia and Myanmar. Apart from traditional delegations from the Asia Pacific and South Asia, players from the Middle East and the UAE, for one, are injecting some new enthusiasm into the EEF.
For Russia, strengthening business ties with friendly economies via increased trade is at the top of the agenda at the forum, Anderida Financial Group founder Alexey Tarapovsky told Izvestia. According to him, issues regarding payments will likely be discussed in parallel, and some baby steps toward opening foreign bank branches in Russia may be taken. And the EEF remains a major platform for making deals, the expert continued. This year, contracts exceeding 4 trln rubles ($45 bln) could be signed at the venue, Tarapovsky believes, topping last year’s volume of 3.8 trln rubles ($38 bln).
Vladimir Chernov, an analyst at Freedom Finance Global, predicts that the number may even approach 4.5 trln rubles ($50 bln) this time around. Agreements in logistics, energy, high technology, mining, transportation, tourism, environmental protection, science and education are all just a few pen-strokes away, he says.
Russia’s largest corporations, including Russian Railways, VEB, Rushydro, Aeroflot and Sber, could potentially sign some very big deals, Inna Andronova, dean at the economic faculty of RUDN University, said.
 
The North Atlantic Alliance is holding maneuvers to enhance the combat capabilities of its troops in its eastern flank. Their ability to operate in conflicts similar to the ongoing hostilities in Ukraine is being tested. While most of the exercises are routine ones, there is a focus on the alleged threat being posed by Russia and its allies.
During the Namejs exercise that kicked off in Latvia on September 3, the readiness of the army, local militia and NATO multinational battlegroups for combat deployment, mobilization and actions on the border with Russia and Belarus “in potential conflicts” will be tested. The maneuvers, which will run until October 8, will involve some 11,000 Latvian troops, around 2,000 soldiers and officers from the Canada-led Forward Presence Battle Group and the NATO Multinational Division North’s headquarters.
“According to the idea behind the Namejs drill, NATO troops are evidently supposed to hold this line of defense. Moscow has repeatedly said that it has no aggressive plans against NATO countries bordering Russia. Therefore, the actions of Latvia and allied troops at these maneuvers look provocative,” military expert Colonel (Ret.) Nikolay Shulgin told Nezavisimaya Gazeta. Similar exercises are currently taking place in Lithuania, too, he added.
Against the backdrop of the perceived “Russian threat,” NATO is also holding drills in Finland and Romania, where pilots and air defense crews are honing their skills. An American airborne early warning and control aircraft E-3A was spotted during drills off Romania. The aircraft seemed to scan the airspace around Crimea and the island itself. Finnish President Alexander Stubb called Russia “threat no. 1” amid the Baana-2024 and Keha-2024/2 drills currently taking place in Finland.
“On August 21, a drone alert was issued in the Murmansk Region,” Shulgin recounted. “A Ukrainian drone clearly targeted Russia’s northernmost territories. And these threats may pop up again. Also, the participation of NATO reconnaissance aircraft in similar attacks cannot be ruled out, which necessitates steps to strengthen the region’s air defenses in order to nullify the risks of Russian military and strategic facilities being hit,” the expert concluded.
 
Since 2014, the European Union has funneled at least €126 bln to Ukraine, the Russian Mission to the EU in Brussels told Izvestia. Of that sum, the bloc has allocated over €118 bln to Kiev since the start of Russia’s special military operation.
As Brussels no longer conceals that its main goal is to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia via proxy Kiev, the EU is planning to tap frozen Russian assets to lend Ukraine an additional $50 bln. EU countries are expected to finance 50% to 60% of the loan. While European Commissioner for the Economy Paolo Gentiloni has said that the G7 will likely have the framework of this deal ready by October, negotiations are currently stalled.
Polish political scientist and Mysl Polska columnist Mateusz Piskorski believes that the EU’s support for Ukraine will start to wane soon. “While previously signed defense contracts will be executed, I doubt more will follow. Everyone in Europe understands how deplorable Ukraine’s financial situation is, as it is essentially bankrupt,” he told Izvestia. “Besides, there are no financial guarantees from the United States. Nor is it clear what policy the White House will pursue following the presidential election,” he added.
Professor of the Department of European Studies of the Faculty of International Relations of St. Petersburg State University Stanislav Tkachenko, an expert at the Valdai Discussion Club, argued that EU member countries are facing a growing debt burden as they keep their military and financial assistance spigot flowing to Ukraine. “By the way, the debt burden rises fastest for the states that help Ukraine the most, such as Germany,” he told Izvestia.
According to the analyst, these countries aren’t doing themselves any favors, with lower credit ratings, rising interest rates, growing debt servicing costs and reduced economic efficiency overall waiting for them at the end of the Ukraine aid tunnel.
 
In January-June, the United States increased its plywood purchases from Russia by an annual 10% to 83,800 cubic meters, and Canada’s imports rose more than twofold to 7,710 cubic meters, according to data from the Lesprom Network thinktank seen by Vedomosti.
Lesprom Network said unfriendly economies that have joined anti-Russian sanctions accounted for around a fifth of Russia’s total plywood exports in the first half of 2024. China and Kazakhstan, the largest buyers of Russian plywood, too, increased their imports, and Russian exports to India rose as well.
Sergey Grishunin, managing director at the National Rating Agency (NRA), noted that plywood exports to those markets have grown mostly because the EU, which used to be the largest buyer of lumber, plywood and other wood raw material from Russia not so long ago, set an anti-dumping duty on these imports, while the US has severely tightened import duties.
Lyudmila Rokotyanskaya, a stock market expert at BCS World of Investments, explains the increase in Russian plywood imports to the North American market by growing construction rates there.
While the US is a major consumer that has a significant impact on the global market, its current purchases of plywood from Russia are only a fraction of what it bought in 2021, when Russia shipped as many as some 569,000 cubic meters of plywood to the US and was the country’s fifth largest supplier, Artyom Kuznetsov at Strategy Partners argues.
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