Top stories in the Russian press on Wednesday, February 3, prepare by TASS

Media: Navalny’s suspended sentence turns into actual prison term

Alexey Navalny will spend two years and eight months in a general security penal colony for fraud against the Yves Rocher company. He was handed a suspended sentence in the case in 2014, but on February 2, Moscow’s Simonovsky District Court sentenced the opposition figurehead to an actual prison term for numerous probation violations, Izvestia writes.

The court had every reason to uphold the Federal Penitentiary Service’s request to replace Navalny’s suspended sentence with a real jail term, said lawyer Yevgeny Chernousov. "A Federal Penitentiary Service official requested that the court send him to prison for 3.5 years, which does not exceed the term of his initial suspended sentence," he noted. According to the attorney, the court was unable to issue a harsher ruling because it would have been rescinded by a higher court following the defendant’s appeal.

The court’s decision will probably boost and radicalize the protest movement, Director General of the Agency for Political and Economic Communications Dmitry Orlov pointed out. However, in his view, there is no reason to assume that the trend will persist for a long time.

Meanwhile, Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow and chair of the Russian Domestic Politics and Political Institutions Program at the Carnegie Moscow Center, pointed out that a prison term would give Navalny greater "moral authority". According to the expert, the opposition will become more recognizable and "will encourage more people to engage in political activity."

Head of the Expert Council at the Expert Institute of Social Studies Gleb Kuznetsov believes that the sentence will impact neither Navalny’s political future, nor the opposition’s prospects, nor the situation in Russia in general. "During this past year, we saw absolutely terrible things: the pandemic, the collapse of the way of life of millions of people around the world, the storming of the US Capitol in Washington, water cannons on the streets of European cities. It is naive and ridiculous to expect that a prison term handed to someone in Russia will change anything," the expert told Kommersant.

Media: Sputnik V recognized as safe vaccine

The Lancet, one the world's most reputable scientific journals, has published the results of the phase 3 clinical trials of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine. The trials involving more than 20,000 volunteers have proven that the vaccine does not cause serious side effects and creates strong immunity, Izvestia notes.

The fact that researchers from Russia’s Gamaleya Institute published interim data in one of the world's leading medical journals provides scientists in other countries with an opportunity to draw conclusions about the Russian vaccine, head of the genome engineering laboratory at Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology Pavel Volchkov told the newspaper. "It is important that the data is transparent and Sputnik V is already arriving on foreign markets. However, other publications can now be expected to go through the article with a fine-tooth comb and conjure up many questions. However, that’s only natural for a highly competitive market," the expert pointed out.

Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology Professor Dmitry Kulish told Kommersant that The Lancet article was an epic milestone. According to him, the vaccine’s developers were criticized for being slow with the publication of the results of the phase 3 trials. And now, in Kulish’s words, it has become clear that the delay came from the need to include people over the age of 60 in the trials. The expert also emphasized that "highly respectable" professors from the United Kingdom, Russia’s "geopolitical rival," had concluded their review by saying that "another vaccine can now join the fight to reduce the incidence of COVID-19." "As far as I remember, this is the first time that eminent Western professors have made such a strong and direct statement," Kulish stressed.

"Even critics said from the very beginning that it could be a good vaccine because it’s not the only adenovirus vaccine platform," molecular biologist Irina Yakutenko noted. "It’s nice to have such an article because we finally can see figures," the expert concluded.

Nezavisimaya Gazeta: China rejects claims of global dominance

China has finally made the United States engage in dialogue. Member of the Political Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party Yang Jiechi pointed to Beijing's desire to improve relations in an address to an influential Washington-based non-government consultative organization. According to him, China is not challenging the United States' dominant role, has no intention of dividing spheres of interest and is not seeking to impose its development model on others. However, in order to put relations back on track, the US needs to stop interfering in China’s affairs, Nezavisimaya Gazeta writes.

Yang Jiechi also put forward three demands: the Americans should agree to restore normal diplomatic and commercial ties, adopt a fair approach to Chinese businessmen and stop persecuting Chinese students in the US. So, does Beijing's message indicate China's willingness for reconciliation or commitment to a tough policy?

Deputy Director of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of World Economy and International Relations Alexander Lomanov pointed out that "China has always wanted to have good relations with the US." "After taking the helm of the country’s administration, Xi Jinping offered a new concept of relations between the major powers. The concept, primarily directed at the US, was based on the principles of mutual respect and cooperation. That said, the desire to live in harmony with the US that Beijing has expressed recently is a continuation of China’s traditional policy," the expert explained.

The question is what will happen in 2030, when, according to many experts, China will surpass the United States, becoming the world’s largest economy. "For now, China is sticking to its old principles, reiterating that it will never become a hegemonic power and commit aggression against other countries. However, its economic power will provide Beijing with new tools of global political influence. But still, China won’t follow in the footsteps of the US, creating military alliances to ensure its dominance," Lomanov noted.

Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Ukraine may aim Turkish drones at Black Sea Fleet

Kiev has secured Washington’s support for the establishment of a trilateral military alliance in the Black Sea region, which will bring together Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleva said following a conversation with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Such an alliance poses a threat to Russia’s interests because Turkey, the United Kingdom and Romania may also sponsor the coalition, providing it with weapons and whipping up hostilities against Russia in the Black Sea region, Nezavisimaya Gazeta notes.

"A trilateral union formed in the current situation has some special features, the main being that the US and NATO seek to fuel the resentment of Russia’s enemies on a larger scale and organize well-coordinated action aimed at countering Moscow," said Academy of Military Science Correspondent Member Colonel Eduard Rodyukov.

"Georgia doesn’t have a navy, it’s air force is in a difficult situation but the country has good military infrastructure. Both Georgia and Ukraine allow US reconnaissance planes monitoring Russian military facilities to fly over their territory," Russian military expert retired Lieutenant General Yuri Netkachev noted. He pointed out that as a next step, Ukraine and Georgia might let NATO deploy warplanes to their military airfields.

According to media reports, Turkey will provide its advanced Bayraktar TB-2S unmanned aerial vehicles to the Ukrainian Air Force in 2021. Netkachev believes that the drones will pose a serious threat not only to the Russian ground forces but to the Black Sea Fleet’s ships as well. "Drones can be controlled from space and fire guided missiles without entering enemy air defense zones. That said, Russia’s military command will have to find effective tools to address such threats," the expert emphasized.

Izvestia: Oil prices unlikely to reach $60 per barrel level

Oil prices went up ahead of an OPEC+ monitoring committee meeting scheduled for February 3. However, experts interviewed by Izvestia believe that prices are unlikely to reach the $60-per-barrel mark.

Oil prices are buttressed by diminishing fears about low global energy demand amid a drop in the number of new coronavirus cases, Alpari Senior Analyst Anna Bodrova pointed out. "Vaccination campaigns, which are actively underway in Europe and the United States, offer hope for a global economic recovery," QBF’s Leading Analyst Oleg Bogdanov added.

However, there aren’t enough reasons to expect oil prices to pass the $60 benchmark. According to AMarkets Analytics Department Chief Artem Deyev, data indicating consistent oil consumption growth in developed countries would support prices but no one can say for sure when it will happen.

The OPEC+ monitoring committee is likely to make careful assessments of the situation on the global market, Deyev said. "The scale of the pandemic, numerous lockdown restrictions and the slow vaccination pace give no reason to hope that demand will recover to the 2019 level," the expert stressed.

OPEC+ countries may either maintain the current oil output level or consider a slight increase, Deputy Director General of the National Energy Institute Alexander Frolov said. Such an approach will facilitate the gradual sale of surplus oil supplies, which is what OPEC+ is focused on at the moment, the expert concluded.