Top stories in the Russian press on Wednesday, May 6, prepared by TASS

Kommersant: Trump picks envoy to negotiate key arms control deal with Russia

US President Donald Trump has nominated a candidate for Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. This position is important for Russia since this person will hold talks with Moscow on the fate of New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) that is due to expire in 2021. However, the candidate tapped for this position, Marshall Billingslea, could be rejected by the Senate. Earlier, US Senators denied him another senior position as a special envoy for nuclear talks blaming his remark in favor of using harsh interrogation techniques against terrorists.

The position of Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security has been vacant for more than six months, Kommersant business daily writes. This field is crucial for Russian-US relations. Moscow and Washington don’t have many topics and interests in common, but arms control has until recently remained an area where the sides continued cooperating despite sharp differences on other issues. However, soon this area of cooperation could be left without a legal basis. In February 2021, New START will expire and it can be extended for five years. Although Moscow has called for extending the treaty, Washington has backpedaled on the decision.

The date of the Senate confirmation hearing has not yet been announced, however it is clear now that this procedure won’t be easy, the paper says. Meanwhile, US Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan hoped that Billingslea’s appointment could help advance arms control talks between Moscow and Washington. According to retired Lieutenant General Evgeny Buzhinsky, an expert at the PIR Center, who cooperated with Billingslea in the early 2000s, this candidate is not a flexible negotiator and he is not ready to reach a compromise, but would rather strictly follow instructions. However, regardless of his negotiating skills, it’s unreal to draw up an agreement on arms control between the US, Russia and China by February 2021, he noted.

Meanwhile, the New START deal still could have a chance to be extended if Billingslea convinced Trump to shelve plans on involving China and just come to terms with Russia.

Izvestia: Scam websites on the rise in Russia amid coronavirus pandemic

In early 2020, the number of attacks on Russians through scam resources (websites used by fraudsters to rake in money) soared 10-fold to 15 mln. The number of these pages doubled to 10,000 in the first quarter of 2020 compared with the same period in 2019, research carried out by Kaspersky Lab revealed, says Izvestia. The potential damage due to such schemes in the first quarter of 2020 could surpass 3 bln rubles ($40.7 mln), according to this research.

This surge is explained by the fact that these schemes are easy and very profitable given that Russians are spending more time online during the coronavirus pandemic. Fraudsters have been actively exploiting the COVID-19 situation, using false promises ranging from paying social benefits to selling individual protection gear, representatives of leading Russian banks said.

"Scams have become one of the most popular schemes used by online fraudsters. Very often they exploit the brands of major companies and famous persons to undermine [people’s] vigilance. The most popular categories for scammers are banks, pension funds, celebrities as well as state lotteries," Tatyana Sidorina, a senior content analyst at Kaspersky Lab, said.

Deputy Director at Otkritie Bank’s Information Security Department Ilya Suloyev attributed the rise in such fraud to the fact that scammers find it easier to reach new audiences through ads on social networks, search engines and video hosting sites.

Once the quarantine measures in Russia end, scammers could come up with new fraudulent schemes involving tourism to Russian resorts and drugs that restore immunity and mental health, analyst at InfoWatch Andrei Arsentyev told the paper.

Vedomosti: Russian economy will survive at $10 oil price, vows finance minister

Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said in his interview with Vedomosti that he would prefer to call the current situation a challenge rather than a crisis. "Crisis? This word even hurt my ears," the finance chief said. According to Siluanov, the real crisis was five years ago when Urals oil was cheaper than $15 per barrel. "Now, we don’t pay much attention to oil because we have created the necessary financial buffers and we will survive even at a price of $10. This is the war of the past and we have prepped for it, so today we are facing a challenge of an absolutely new scale," he noted. The current situation could be probably described in history textbooks, Siluanov said, stressing that the most important task now is to protect public health and human lives.

The finance minister expects that the average oil price in 2020 would be $30 per barrel. Turning to the OPEC+ deal on cutting oil output, he said that the advantage of this agreement is that the talks now involve all oil producing countries, including the United States. "This is the guarantee of more successful steps on the oil market."

Siluanov also predicted that Russia’s budget deficit would be nearly 4% of the GDP this year, yet the GDP could drop 5%. "We are not cutting spending, on the contrary, we are increasing it and that’s why we will be using the money from the National Welfare Fund and loans to provide funding for the current commitments and anti-crisis programs." However, the Finance Ministry is not planning to spend a large amount of money from the National Welfare Fund during these two years, he noted, saying that this would be wrong. The minister also rejected the idea of borrowing more money from abroad noting the current high interest rates.

Speaking on Russia’s major infrastructure projects, Siluanov said the deadline for implementing them would be moved up, but nevertheless they would be fulfilled.

Izvestia: Russian business activity to return to normal within two years

One in five Russian companies will need more than a year to restore business if the restrictions are lifted no later than mid-June. In general, Russian enterprises will rebound within two years, Head of the Center of Strategic Research Alexander Sinitsyn told Izvestia. Businesses are bracing for a new round of state support, he said. If entrepreneurs’ hopes are not fulfilled, a wave of bankruptcies will be on the horizon, with a third of companies, possibly facing this risk. Experts believe that businesses won’t be able to return to the pre-coronavirus way of life.

According to the think tank, 14% of organizations will restore normal operations within three or four weeks. In three or six months, 50% of businesses will bounce back. A year later, nearly 80% of companies will be back to normal. Others will need more than two years to fully rebound.

"Business is very sensitive to the timeframe and procedures of cancelling the restrictions. On condition that they are lifted at least by mid-June, every fifth Russian company will restore activity in more than a year," Sinitsyn stated.

Still, companies will face a number of hurdles along this path. The think tank believes that 50% of enterprises will have to cut salaries, 45% expect to lose clients and brace for higher purchasing prices. Some 43% will be forced to lay off staff.

According to Vice President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Dmitry Kurochkin, 80% of companies are not working normally, though formally they continue operations. Therefore, no full restoration of their activity is expected, he noted. "Most companies have to look for new markets, new suppliers, new channels and formats of sales. In view of this, they won’t be able to rebound. The change of the paradigm is an irreversible process," he emphasized.

Vedomosti: Half of Russians ready to back constitutional amendments

Nearly half of Russians (47%) would vote in favor of the constitutional amendments proposed by President Vladimir Putin, while one-third (31%) would not back them if the nationwide vote on this issue were held "in the coming months." Another 22% of respondents remain undecided, according to a survey conducted in April by the Levada Center. In late March, some 40% of Russians were ready to endorse the amendments and 34% were against them, Vedomosti writes.

A total of 65% Russians (54% in March) are ready to take part in this vote, while 19% others are not going to cast their ballots (27% in March) and another 15% have not yet decided whether they will come to the polling stations.

Those who are sure that they would take part in the vote support the proposed constitutional amendments, while those who would rather vote against them are not planning to go to the ballot boxes.

The nationwide vote was originally scheduled for April 22, but was delayed over the coronavirus pandemic. The president will set a new date in his decree. Now, it is expected that the vote will take place in early July and preliminarily on July 8, a source close to the Kremlin said. "There is no exact date now because it is still unclear how the situation with the coronavirus will unfold," he said. Another backup option is September, but then Unified Election Day will have to be postponed, he noted.