Press review: Russia moves to boost its army and Zelensky to present victory plan to Biden

MOSCOW, September 17. /TASS/. Vladimir Putin orders Russia to increase size of its Armed Forces; Vladimir Zelensky will present his victory plan at the UNGA next week; and an apparent assassination attempt may send Donald Trump’s approval ratings higher. These stories topped Tuesday’s newspaper headlines across Russia.
 
Russia’s Army will become the world’s second largest after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Monday ordering its size to be increased to almost 2.389 million people, including 1.5 million active servicemen, beginning from December 1.
Russia last expanded its army to 2,209,130 people, including 1.32 million servicemen, in December 2023.
The move will add 180,000 troops to Russia’s active force as soon as the winter comes.
According to statistical data, China has the largest number of active combat soldiers, or 2.035 million personnel. India and the United States come second and third, with 1.445 million and 1.328 million, respectively.
Earlier, the Russian Defense Ministry explained that the move comes amid NATO’s aggressive activity and expansion. The military said that the increase in the army’s size would be gradual as more contract personnel would be added.
 
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is planning to put forward Kiev’s victory plan at a meeting with his US counterpart, Joe Biden, in Washington D.C. where he will travel to attend the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) meetings next week, the Ukrainian leader said in an interview on Monday. He will also present the document to the two US presidential hopefuls, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
His “victory plan” includes four major points and an additional one that will be needed after the military conflict ends, Zelensky said. According to him, these include security, Ukraine’s geopolitical position, an abundant military support and economic support, too.
The Ukrainian president might have taken into account the fact that two points of the plan he had announced previously, namely forcing Moscow to negotiate provided the Ukrainian incursion into the Kursk Region proves a success and increasing Western pressure on the Global South, have actually failed. And this, Director of the Center for Eurasian Studies at MGIMO University Ivan Safranchuk told Nezavisimaya Gazeta, clearly shows that the West may be allowing for the possibility of a Russian victory in this conflict even if no specific parameters of it can yet be defined. “However, Kiev’s Western allies seem to worry lest the end to the conflict does look like a Russian victory rather than how it may end,” the expert specified.
So far, at least a few people involved by the president in drafting the plan have seen the document. Meanwhile, Kiev has repeatedly stated that it would oppose any freezing of its military conflict with Russia, and, of course, it is important for it that the United States supports exactly “the Ukrainian victory plan” rather than the scenario of its capitulation or conflict freezing.
However, it is hard to imagine a more unsuitable venue for presenting the draft Kiev victory plan than the UNGA, given the identity of the United Nations itself, First Deputy Chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs Konstantin Zatulin said in a comment for Nezavisimaya Gazeta, even if the Ukrainian leader seeks sympathy and support for his own ideas at the scheduled meetings in Washington. The senior Russian lawmaker expects Zelensky’s “victory plan” to go to the grave with the Ukrainian president similar to what once happened to Adolf Hitler’s Barbarossa venture.
 
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump was at his Florida golf club late on September 15 when the shooting occurred hundreds of meters away from him. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) described the incident as an apparent assassination attempt. Several hours later, the US Secret Service, the FBI and the police said a man had been detained not far from the golf club. While the FBI has not disclosed the name of the suspect, the leading US media said the gunman is a Hawaii resident, Ryan Routh, 58.
Judging from his social media accounts, the suspect is an active pro-Ukrainian activist. Also, he holds an overtly anti-Israeli position. So, he has said openly that the entire territory of Israel should belong to the Palestinians. These accounts of Routh were soon suspended.
Against the backdrop of yet another apparent attempt on Trump’s life, his approval ratings in polls have risen, albeit insignificantly. Experts question the results of these opinion polls though.
“Judging from the information available to the broad audience, the incident is an apparent assassination attempt,” Mikhail Mironyuk, associate professor at the Higher School of Economics, told Izvestia. However, what happened will not necessarily increase the former president’s chances to win the November election, the expert argues. “This will more likely bolster Trump’s supporters resolve to vote for him, and his opponents may hate him even more,” he said pointing to the growing polarization among American voters.
Trump has coined the image of a martyr of the US political system following the first assassination attempt on July 13, and he may therefore expect to gain greater voter support this time around, leading researcher at the Center for Security Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences Konstantin Blokhin explained to Izvestia.
According to Mironyuk, the US election campaign is becoming less meaningful but increasingly emotionally charged. In any case, there is a situation that can be turned to one’s advantage by manipulating the results of a probe, the expert concluded.
 
A project similar to Elon Musk’s Starlink to unfold a fleet of 383 satellites may cost Russia 445 bln rubles ($4.9 bln), Izvestia has learned. While as much as 329 bln rubles ($3.6 bln) is to be raised from extra-budgetary resources, the remaining 116 bln rubles ($1.28 bln) will be funded from the state coffers. The money will be invested in a system being developed by Buro 1440, an R&D company that was once owned by Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov’s holdings.
“Developing a satellite communication network is a priority for us in the near future. It will be necessarily included in a new national project titled Data Economy and Digital Transformation of State,” the Digital Development Ministry told Izvestia.
Flight certificates for the key technologies of the future service have already been issued, and everything is ready for scaling, Buro 1440 said.
Sergey Pekhterev, a shareholder of the Ka-Internet provider, finds the plans envisaged in the project quite realistic in terms of the timing of work to build the fleet and the number of carrier rockets and satellites in the orbit.
Russia does need a group of satellites that would provide secure access to the Internet nationwide, Institute for Internet Research Director Karen Kazaryan told Izvestia. It will offer Internet service to remote regions, especially the Northern Sea Route in the country’s Extreme North. In addition, the satellite network will help the operators of motor roads and railways with better Internet access as the Internet is important for developing the market of freight transportation and embracing the latest solutions in logistics, the expert explained.
As 28% of Russia’s territory lies in the Arctic zone which has poor access to geostationary satellites above the Equator, new fleets of satellites in non-geostationary orbits will be crucial for Russia, Leonid Konik, a partner at ComNews Research, believes.
 
The latest decision by OPEC+ to delay plans to start rolling back voluntary production cuts by two months to December has had almost no effect on the oil market, with the Brent benchmark even briefly dropping below $70 per barrel, or a two-year low.
Production curbs amid low oil prices can matter to Russia. The country exports its Urals blend at a discount to Brent that narrowed to around $12 per barrel in August, and now the Urals oil is trading at around $60 per barrel, or the minimum needed for filling the coffers.
Valery Andrianov, associate professor at the Financial University under the Russian government, insists that OPEC+ is still playing a major role in regulating the oil market but that it is weakening as there are currently two major aspects driving global oil prices, namely the Chinese economy growth rate and the geopolitical situation in the Middle East. And should oil prices hover below $70 per barrel, OPEC+ may resort to additional production cuts, but if this does not bring oil prices back to the $75 to $80 corridor, the alliance’s effectiveness may be questioned, the expert said.
A new round of discussions about future parameters of word of the expanded oil alliance may await us, National Energy Security Fund Director Konstantin Simonov said. The expert recounted that Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin had said openly at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum that OPEC+ is no longer playing a major role on the oil market. However, no hasty decisions regarding OPEC+ should be made, Simonov warned.
Whether Russia will benefit from additional production cuts will depend on how the market reacts. There will be benefit, if the move helps oil to recover to around $85, but if the China aspect prevails and the new restrictions fail to produce the desired effect, such cuts may have a negative effect on the size of the country’s oil and gas revenues, Andrianov argues.
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