Top stories in the Russian press on Thursday, December 17, prepared by TASS

Izvestia: Putin’s annual news conference to focus on coronavirus pandemic

This year, Vladimir Putin’s annual news conference will be held in a new format - "with elements of a direct line." Amid the challenging epidemiological situation, the president will answer questions from his residence in Novo-Ogaryovo, outside Moscow. The COVID-19 pandemic is highly likely to dominate the upcoming event, experts interviewed by Izvestia said. The Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights and the Federation Council expect a discussion on the issues related to social guarantees, while the Civic Chamber believes that the head of state will affirm support measures announced in 2020. Political scientists hope to hear an evaluation of the fight against coronavirus, and think that ahead of the New Year the president will focus on a positive agenda. This mode of communication will help to address many concerns of Russians, experts note.

"There is one key issue, which is in the spotlight. This is the pandemic and the challenges people are facing due to it in their daily lives. There will be an evaluation of the steps taken by the authorities in overcoming the negative consequences in the healthcare and social-economic sectors in general. When will we return to normal? When will we live better than in early 2020? This is a major concern and this will be a key topic," said Chairman of the Board at the Civil Society Development Foundation Konstantin Kostin.

Director for political analysis at INSOMAR company, sociologist Dmitry Poturemsky believes that Putin’s news conference is a guarantee that many issues that really concern Russians will be ironed out. "If any problem and any particular case grabs the president’s attention, it’s evident that a solution should be expected. The news conference is very important from this point of view," the expert noted. Alexander Brod, a member of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights, believes that the news conference will help sum up problems and offer the head of state an opportunity to issue orders to sort out issues.

It’s very important for people to listen to the president’s view on key issues of the outgoing year, Secretary of the Civic Chamber Lidiya Mikheyeva said. "2020 will be remembered for the pandemic and the new global challenges that the entire world has faced. We saw the president’s support in solving all problems, which were sensitive for Russians. We expect that at the news conference once again a course will be confirmed to aid Russians," she told the newspaper.

Nezavisimaya Gazeta: US seeks to elbow Russia out of Libya

Russian and US diplomats have traded jabs on the situation in the Eastern Mediterranean region. While on a working visit to Croatia’s capital of Zagreb, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov blamed Washington for banning regional states from normally cooperating with Moscow. This came as a response to a statement by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who claimed that Russia posed a threat to stability in the Mediterranean. The top US diplomat spotlighted the Libyan conflict, alleging that Moscow had violated an arms embargo to Libya, giving a helping hand to Commander of the Libyan National Army Khalifa Haftar.

"The transition process, which is now underway in the United States between the Trump and Biden administrations creates rather favorable conditions for those groups of influence inside Libya, which seek decisive steps," Grigory Lukyanov, a senior lecturer with the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Higher School of Economics’ School of Political Science, told Nezavisimaya Gazeta. "In his turn, Haftar has repeatedly shown his skill to take advantage of such instances. It’s difficult to say how he will act under the current conditions. As we remember, six months ago various observers predicted that Haftar would end as a politician and a project. Nevertheless, the situation turned out to be more complicated."

The Biden administration’s Libya policy is still unclear, however it announced plans on using sanctions and is likely to back a tentative eastern coalition in Libya against Turkey’s expansionism. However, Biden has emphasized the importance of values in US policy and the accusations against Haftar referring to war crimes could make him an unacceptable figure for the White House, according to the expert. "Here is one more issue - Biden is set to keep countering Russia as one of threats to US interests both in the Middle East and in the world," Lukyanov mentioned. It’s highly likely that in the first half of 2021 new sanctions will be imposed on Russian companies and Russian assets in Libya, he pointed out.

Kommersant: Transnistria urges Russia to ease citizenship procedure

Officials in Transnistria, Moldova’s breakaway region, have asked Moscow to ease the procedure of granting Russian citizenship. The idea is that all citizens who wish to get Russian passports should be allowed to do so at home, without traveling to Russia. Russian lawmakers said they were working on the issue and hoped that it would be ironed out under a Donbass-style arrangement through a presidential decree, Kommersant writes.

Although the amendments to the law "On Russian citizenship" passed this July simplified the procedure of getting Russian passports for citizens of Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan, this does not concern Moldovan and Ukrainian passport holders. "These amendments don’t work for us," a source in Transnistrian state structures told the newspaper. "The citizenship of another country should not be an obstacle for obtaining Russian citizenship and we want to get a Russian passport via a simplified procedure on the spot, without coming to Russia," the source said.

Russian MP Konstantin Zatulin, who met with Transnistrian officials, said that today the procedure under which foreigners, who don’t live in Russia, could become Russians, was confirmed by the president’s decree last year only in regard to citizens of the unrecognized Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. However, they also have to travel to Russia to do the paperwork. In Transnistria’s case, it does not have a common border with Russia unlike Donbass, so this is not an option, the lawmaker said.

Chairman of the State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs, Relations with Compatriots and Eurasian Integration Leonid Kalashnikov notes that the Donbass arrangement should apply to Transnistria, but without the need to go to Russia to do the paperwork. "A presidential decree is needed and we are trying to initiate this," he said, noting that he had sent a respective proposal to the presidential administration and the Foreign Ministry several months ago. According to him, the newly elected Moldovan President Maia Sandu, who recently called for withdrawing the Russian military from Transnistria, was contributing to a speedy solution to the issue.

Izvestia: World Bank’s recommendations run counter to Russian interests, economists say

The World Bank has suggested that Russia should introduce a package of measures aimed at boosting the economy. The global financial institution recommended easing Russia’s import replacement program, lowering tariffs on importing goods, abandoning outdated technical regulatory rules and bolstering the protection of investors. These proposals drew a mixed response from Russian economists, Izvestia writes.

According to Evgeny Mironyuk, an analyst at Freedom Finance, certainly, Russia’s years-long efforts on replacing imports have had a positive effect such as stabilizing key economic indicators during the pandemic. This policy has led to the formation of powerful and competitive production sectors, said Alexander Proklov, a senior managing director at National Credit Ratings (NCR). He believes that the only recommendation by the World Bank, which is most likely to be implemented, is creating an institute for assisting foreign investments, which would simplify the process of attracting money from abroad. Similar organizations have been proven to be effective in Brazil, India, Ireland, South Korea and Vietnam. Among 30 leading countries in terms of investments, Russia is the last for its quality of institutions and regulations, according to the World Bank’s report.

Deputy Director of ACRA Sovereign Ratings and Macroeconomic Analysis Group Dmitry Kulikov notes that the World Bank’s recommendations are universal and the organization is "for all good things." However, in practice, when states around the world move towards isolationism along with trade protectionism, any advice to lower tariffs and cease import replacement policy doesn’t quite meet the country’s economic interests. This is more likely to weaken national producers and reverse the process of reducing dependence on the sales of raw materials, he noted. However, full isolation from global chains in the very end won’t do any good for the economy either: it will be much harder to catch up with the world leaders without any technological exchange with them, the expert pointed out.

Kommersant: Restaurants in Russia bracing for the worst

The restoration of Russia’s public catering market, which was one of the most affected sectors due to the anti-coronavirus restrictions, is expected to be delayed. According to the NPD Group’s forecast, patrons will fully come back to cafes and restaurants not earlier than by 2022, while the market’s revenues will rebound only by 2023, Kommersant writes. Russian restaurants did not manage to earn a lot on delivery while their rivalry with supermarkets only exacerbated.

In 2021, the number of visitors at Russian cafes and restaurants will be at least 5% lower than in 2019, according to the study. By the end of 2020, the drop will be at least 22%, analysts estimated. Infoline says that this year the public catering market’s volume will sink 35% to 1.6 trln rubles ($22 bln) year-on-year.

Managing Partner and Director General at Ginza Project Moscow Maxim Polzikov believes that it will take a long time for the market to be restored, but it’s senseless to make any particular forecast now as the final effect of the COVID-19 pandemic is still unclear. Probably, a coronavirus vaccine will have some positive effect, but it’s unlikely that the market will be restored to its pre-crisis levels earlier than by mid-2022. Polzikov believes that the crisis on the market was also triggered a mass switch of Russians to distance working. The projects, which focused on business traffic, lost up to 60% in revenues after the anti-coronavirus measures ended.