Top stories in the Russian press on Wednesday, April 8, prepared by TASS

Rossiyskaya Gazeta: Trump over the moon to grab lunar resources

US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order proclaiming America’s right to use lunar resources. The document once again demonstrates Washington's unilateral approach to global issues. Russia’s Roscosmos State Space Corporation has pointed out that plans to seize other planets won’t facilitate international cooperation, Rossiyskaya Gazeta notes.

The US does not believe it is important to make any international agreement on the extraction and use of space resources. A thing to note is that Washington did not sign the Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies passed by the UN General Assembly on December 5, 1979, which provides for international regulation of Moon mining operations.

A Roscosmos source told the newspaper that there were no technologies at the moment that would allow the US to mine resources on other planets or celestial bodies.

Inna Khavanova, a professor at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, pointed out that "this is not the first attempt to violate the principles of the exploration and use of outer space enshrined in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty," which made it clear that outer space is not subject to national appropriation.

"In 2015, the United States adopted the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, which encourages private American companies to use the resources of the Moon and other celestial bodies. According to the document, any US company engaged in the commercial mining of space resources has the right to use them. At the time, Russia blasted the Act within the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, pointing out that Washington’s unilateral move to give US companies a free hand in space mining was controversial from the standpoint of international law," the expert emphasized.

Izvestia: Russia calls on Taliban to preserve deal with US

Moscow sees no reason for the collapse of the US-Taliban agreement and hopes that the Taliban (outlawed in Russia) and the administration in Kabul will conduct a prisoner swap, Russian Special Presidential Envoy for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov told Izvestia.

On April 5, the Taliban accused the US of failing to implement the February 29 agreement and threatened to resume military activities. The Taliban’s main demand is that Kabul release 5,000 of its members. Experts say that the threat is nothing more than a gamble to put pressure on the other side because the Taliban has no plans to leave the deal since it is to their advantage.

Moscow is urging the Afghans to maintain the agreement and reach a consensus on a prisoner exchange, Kabulov pointed out. According to him, by threatening to pull out of the deal, the Taliban seeks to put pressure, first and foremost, on the Americans, in order to make them influence President Ashraf Ghani’s government.

"The Taliban’s propaganda targeting the domestic audience describes the deal as the movement’s big victory over the United States and points out that in the face of the Taliban’s pressure, the US will have to leave. This is why the movement is definitely interested in preserving the agreement," said Andrei Serenko, who heads the Russian Center for Contemporary Afghan Studies.

Meanwhile, the Afghan government seems to be beginning to act contrary to the United States’ political will for the first time in 18 years. Although it does depend on foreign economic aid, the Kabul government is coming to its own understanding on how the security architecture operates in the region. And now, the Afghan authorities are ready to oppose Washington’s actions that run counter to their position. The Taliban doesn’t like this at all as they are not used to seeing the authorities in Kabul as an independent actor, the expert pointed out.

Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Iran’s coronavirus catastrophe may harm Rouhani’s government

The European Union expects the US to ease sanctions against Iran to make it possible for the country to handle the consequences of the COVID-19 crisis. In a gesture of support, French President Emmanuel Macron made a phone call to his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani on April 7. The EU earlier called for the removal of sanctions against Syria, Venezuela, Iran and North Korea in order to provide them with medical and humanitarian aid. It may be a good sign for reformists among the Iranian elite who promote a rapprochement with the West, Nezavisimaya Gazeta writes.

"The coronavirus has primarily dealt a blow to President Rouhani’s administration and its supporters. From the very start, it became obvious that the government was confused. The administration was bombarded with criticism from all sides. At some point, the military tried to take the lead, expressing its determination to restore order," Iran-based expert with the Russian International Affairs Council Nikita Smagin pointed out.

The military's statements gave reason to believe that drastic changes would follow, but nothing happened.

"The government pulled itself together and started acting in a more decisive manner," Smagin noted.

"Signs of some kind of reconciliation have emerged recently. The intensity of the conservatives’ criticism against the Rouhani administration has let up. In fact, domestic forces are coming together as the world is going through a crisis. However, it is clear that Rouhani and his administration have suffered the greatest damage from the situation," the expert emphasized, adding that society was likely to show a strong reaction to the crisis.

Izvestia: Half of Russian companies seek optimization due to coronavirus

Since a non-working holiday was declared in Russia due to the spread of the coronavirus, half of the country’s companies have been taking various steps to optimize their activities, which particularly include wage cuts, Izvestia wrote, citing a poll conducted by the Center for Strategic Research (CSR).

The poll involved 1,000 top managers from Russian companies with yearly revenues from 50 mln rubles ($663,700) to over two bln rubles ($26.5 mln). According to the survey’s outcome, one in five businesses have already cut wages and 35% intend to do so in the near future, while another 16% of companies have reduced staff. The CSR added that 54% of companies expected their revenues to fall by about 25%. The worsening financial picture is making many businesses embrace bankruptcy plans. The problem is particularly acute for companies involved in commerce, services and the transport industry.

According to Alexey Repik, Co-Chairman of All-Russia Business Association "Delovaya Rossiya" (or Business Russia), companies won’t be able "to bear expenditures without adequate revenues," relying only on themselves and their reserves. "This concerns all companies, including those that have shifted to telecommuting and those that continue to operate at full capacity," he noted.

Andrey Shubin, Executive Director of the All-Russian Non-Governmental Organization Opora Rossii, has the same view of the situation. "We are all facing the need to cut back expenditures as much as possible because we are in for about three months of an [economic] standstill and not everyone will make it through," he predicted.

Clearly, the all-time unemployment low of 4.4%, which was recorded in February 2020, won't be seen again anytime soon, President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Sergei Katyrin emphasized.

Vedomosti: Russian grocery stores see decline in traffic

Customer traffic at Russian grocery stores has dropped due to the lockdown imposed over the coronavirus outbreak, Vedomosti wrote, citing Chairman of the Retail Companies Association’s Presidium Sergei Belyakov.

According to him, the number of customers at convenience stores fell by 20-30% between March 30 and April 5, compared to the week of March 16-22, when the demand for goods with long shelf lives, hygiene items and toilet paper was sky-high. The situation is similar in hypermarkets, where customer traffic has plummeted by 40-60%.

Customers don’t have detailed information about the rules of shopping during the lockdown, they don’t know whether they can ride their car or take a taxi to go shopping, Director of Communications at Auchan Natalya Rychkova pointed out. According to her, many don’t even know if supermarkets in their closest shopping malls were still open.

The average check growth at grocery stores is declining, Belyakov said, adding that people had stocked up on food. He also noted that the fall in customer traffic would cause further damage to retailers.

Infoline-Analytics Director General Mikhail Burmistrov, in turn, says that a significant number of people in Moscow and St. Petersburg either have moved to purchasing food online or are ready to do so. However, online retailers simply don’t have the capacity to deliver orders on time so it takes a few days or even up to two weeks for an order to be delivered, the expert stressed.