The White House leaves no choice to Kiev’s allies; Europe is expected to face difficulties without the US nuclear protection; and Iran rejects nuclear deal negotiations with the US. These stories have topped Wednesday’s newspaper headlines across Russia, according to TASS news agency.
Media: White House leaves no choice to Kiev’s allies
European leaders are exploring opportunities to participate in efforts to resolve the Ukraine crisis peacefully. Paris and London are attempting to intervene in discussions between the US and Russia, while Brussels is reaffirming its commitment to continue supporting Kiev, Izvestia writes.
French President Emmanuel Macron recently visited Washington. According to European news outlets, his aim was to convince US leader Donald Trump to support a French-British proposal on troop deployment to Ukraine. Experts believe that, on one hand, it was meant to reintegrate the US into the conflict from Ukraine’s standpoint, and on the other, to compensate for European capitals’ insufficient resources for long-term backing of Kiev. Still, after the talks, the parties confirmed that it’s up to Europe to address Ukraine’s security.
Three years into the conflict, France likely remains Europe’s primary communicator regarding the Ukraine situation. However, Macron has struggled to establish genuine leadership, which would be supported by effective military and political means. Macron’s fluctuations depend on the evolving situation, noted Pavel Timofeyev, head of the Section for Regional Issues and Conflicts at the Primakov Institute of World Economy and International Relations.
"However, the strategic goal remains to achieve an outcome that could be presented to the public as Russia’s defeat. Macron is concerned by Trump’s rejection of Euroatlantic unity in this regard, as well as the obligation to bear financial responsibility for Kiev and provide it with military aid. And now that a Russian angle has surfaced in US foreign policy, France and the rest of Europe risk being sidelined in the negotiation process. It’s difficult to imagine what they could offer Russia," the expert observed.
Meanwhile, the United Nations Security Council has passed a resolution on resolving the conflict in Ukraine, the first in three years, Vedomosti reports.
The US-drafted document, which neither condemns Moscow nor calls for restoring Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, was supported by Russia and China. Another two permanent UN Security Council members - France and the United Kingdom - abstained from voting, avoiding the use of their veto power. The resolution could alter the international landscape surrounding the Ukraine crisis and significantly influence the negotiation process, Valdai International Discussion Club Program Director Timofey Bordachev observed. According to him, the vote’s outcome has made the international community realize that Russia, the US, and China are, in fact, united by the goal to resolve the conflict in Ukraine as quickly as possible.
Media: Europe to face difficulties without US nuclear umbrella
France could deploy its nuclear forces to Germany if the US decides to reduce its presence in Europe, Vedomosti writes, citing The Telegraph.
Friedrich Merz, Germany’s most probable next chancellor from the alliance of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany and the Christian Social Union in Bavaria, has urged the UK and France to extend their nuclear protection to his country. Currently, it’s the US that provides nuclear security guarantees to most of Europe, with about 150 nuclear bombs stationed in Germany, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey.
French nuclear forces could be sent to Germany if the Americans withdraw from Europe, said Prokhor Tebin, director of the Military and Economic Research Center at the Higher School of Economics’ Institute of World Military Economy and Strategy. This would provoke a strong response from Russia, and relations between Moscow and Paris would deteriorate further. However, there is no reason to discuss the withdrawal of US troops from Europe at this moment, Tebin added.
According to Dmitry Stefanovich, researcher with the Center for International Security at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of World Economy and International Relations, so far, it’s merely about a somewhat hypothetical possibility of nuclear weapons deployment. In military terms, the sustainability of forward deployment involving French aircraft and missiles is a matter for debate. However, on the other hand, the existing practice of storing US nuclear bombs at European airbases holds, primarily, a political - if not symbolic - significance.
The French and British arsenals are considerably inferior to those of Russia and the US. Essentially, in Stefanovich’s words, such a development would not alter much for Russia. The transition to replace NATO’s joint nuclear missions with an EU mission certainly will not enhance Europe’s security, but if this involves the removal of US bombs from the continent, then we could likely cautiously celebrate it, the expert said.
Merz’s idea of a potential extension of the French and British nuclear umbrellas to Germany is unlikely to progress, Russian Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov told Izvestia. According to him, such a proposal from the German politician was simply a reactive response to shifts in US approaches to European allies.
Izvestia: Iran rules out nuclear deal dialogue with US
Iran will not engage with the United States regarding the nuclear agreement until Washington halts exerting pressure on Tehran, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated following a meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, Izvestia reports.
During the senior Russian diplomat’s visit to Iran, the two sides discussed trade collaboration and joint energy and transport projects, as well as cooperation within BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the Eurasian Economic Union. Additionally, Moscow and Tehran emphasized their similar perspectives on the situation in Syria.
Experts highlight that Tehran has struggled to achieve much in cultivating relations with the new Syrian authorities, who don’t appear to be interested in close ties with Iran. "Apparently, Tehran still maintains an agent network and some groups [in Syria], but fundamentally, Iran is not the country that is ready to and able to significantly alter the situation in Syria at this stage. It’s more about efforts to safeguard its influence on the ground, maintaining allied organizations in place, which remain despite their reduced numbers, and using them to increase influence in the future to capitalize on any changes in the situation," Iran expert Nikita Smagin clarified.
The future of the Iran nuclear agreement was another major focus of the discussions. News emerged on February 25 that the US had imposed sanctions on individuals, entities, and vessels linked to Iran’s petrochemical sector and the transportation of its oil. Washington indicated that this was the first step in US President Donald Trump’s initiative to apply maximum pressure on Tehran. In this context, the Iranian foreign minister stated that his country would not return to the negotiating table with Washington as long as Tehran continued to face pressure.
A division between a conservative faction and a faction that could be described as pro-Western is unfolding in Iran. The first camp is represented by Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, while the second is led by Vice President Mohammad Javad Zarif, Middle East expert Yury Mavashev pointed out. "Currently, there are no indications of unity or a cohesive strategy on the nuclear agreement. Zarif’s speech at the Davos conference this year alienated the conservatives. Not everyone in Iran is willing to make an agreement with the US under any circumstances," the expert stressed.
Kommersant: Russia offers economic cooperation to US
Russia and the United States have expressed willingness to enhance cooperation in metals production. The parties see great opportunities for the use of Russia’s reserves of rare-earth elements, while President Vladimir Putin has also called on the US to reopen its market to Russian aluminum, Kommersant notes.
Russia’s total reserves of 29 rare-earth elements stand at 658 million metric tons, which is enough to meet the current and future needs of the country’s economy, the Ministry of Natural Resources stated. However, Russia lacks processing facilities for rare-earth elements and imports up to 90% of the elements that it consumes. "China is the only country that has been able to close the chain in terms of rare-earth metals," Boris Krasnozhyonov, head of securities market analysis at Alfa-Bank, noted. According to him, global demand for rare-earth elements is rapidly growing, rising by 10% every year, and demand for certain metals is expected to increase 40-fold in the next few years.
What Putin said makes it clear that Russia-US cooperation may not be limited to rare-earth metals. He suggested that the US reopen its market to Russian aluminum imports so that Moscow could export two million tons of the metal a year. The Russian president stated that it could help stabilize aluminum prices in the US, where a ban on Russian aluminum imports has been in effect since April 2024. The US could be a promising market for Russia's Rusal aluminum giant, industrial expert Leonid Khazanov assumed. In 2021, Rusal earned $1.087 billion from aluminum exports to the US, which amounted to 9% of the company’s revenues.
Sergey Uchitel, partner at the Pen & Paper bar association, points out that today, any talks between Russia and the US need to be viewed through the prism of efforts to settle the situation in Ukraine. In his opinion, the Russian authorities’ remark about their willingness to grant foreign investors access to some sectors of the economy is more like a verbal signal highlighting Moscow’s willingness not only to resolve the Ukraine issue but also to restore mutually beneficial cooperation with the US.
Kommersant: Bitcoin’s value heads downward
Bitcoin’s value rebounded to the lowest level since November 2024 in the past couple of days. This particularly has to do with the war of tariffs unleashed by the US president. Experts interviewed by Kommersant anticipate bitcoin’s value to decline further to $70,000.
The United States’ 25% duties on aluminum and steel imports from the EU will come into effect on March 12. Earlier, the US imposed 10% duties on goods from China, making Beijing counter by slapping its own duties on US coal, LNG, oil, agricultural machinery, and cars. "The initiative to introduce severe import duties may drive inflation higher in the country, pushing back the timeline of possibilities in terms of a reduction in the key interest rate," Crypto Summit CEO Alexey Zyuzin remarked. Meanwhile, the US Federal Reserve’s refusal to soften its monetary policy is reducing the appeal of high-risk assets such as cryptocurrency, he explained.
A recent hacking incident on one of the major cryptocurrency exchanges, Bybit, from which $1.5 billion was stolen, has also negatively affected investor sentiment. We can forget about stable growth in the crypto market for the next month or two, Bitget Research Chief Analyst Ryan Lee stated. Depressive sentiments could send bitcoin’s value to the $83,000-85,000 level in the coming week, while the worst-case scenario suggests that values will fall below $80,000, approaching the $75,000 mark, he estimated. A further decline in values could even make bitcoin test the $80,000-70,000 level, EMCD director for business development Yevgeny Kitkin said.
Market participants look forward to some positive news, including those related to the implementation of the Donald Trump administration's plans to create a national reserve of bitcoin. However, in Zyuzin’s words, the initiative "is being rejected by one US state after another, and as a result, the project’s future is in doubt." Still, market players believe that the Federal Reserve will once again start reducing the key rate in the middle of the summer, Lee observed. According to him, ahead of the decision, the market could start to recover based on increased investor interest in risky assets. Besides, the situation around a potential trade dispute may be resolved by that time, or market participants will be able to adapt to it.
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