MOSCOW, August 12 /TASS/. Fighting continues in Russia’s Kursk region, forcing Belarus to send reinforcements to the border with Ukraine; BRICS members and other countries announce plans to attend group summit in Russia; and protesters rally against lithium mining in Serbia. These stories topped Monday’s newspaper headlines across Russia.

Almost a week has passed since the start of the Ukrainian army’s attack on Russia’s Kursk region. According to Russian data, the enemy has so far lost up to 1,350 soldiers and heavy equipment. Moscow has announced a counter-terrorism operation in three regions of the country, they are Bryansk, Belgorod and Kursk. Over 76,000 civilians have been evacuated from the border areas in the Kursk region, writes Vedomosti.

The Ukrainian army’s attacks on Russian regions will not affect Brussels’ support for Kiev, EU foreign policy spokesman Peter Stano said. At the same time, the United States has not been in a hurry to react to the situation and even admitted that it does not fully understand Kiev’s goals. The silence of US politicians makes it clear that Ukraine’s intrusion has put the Biden administration in an awkward position, pointed out Andrey Kortunov, director of research at the Russian International Affairs Council. The expert explains that the current development marks a very escalating step by Ukraine. “The US understands that it is getting closer and closer to a red line. Washington is concerned that the issue of assistance to Kiev may go beyond funding, affecting US national security,” Kortunov said.

Meanwhile, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is sending reinforcements to the border with Ukraine, spurred by Kiev’s move to take the conflict to another level. Lukashenko’s decision is further proof of his country’s allied relations with Russia, said the head of the Center for the Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, Ruslan Pukhov. Vedomosti.

The deployment of additional Belarusian troops to the Ukrainian border will not necessarily lead to an immediate escalation, said Nikolay Mezhevich, head of the Center for Belarusian Studies at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences. However, Minsk is not convinced that Ukraine will exercise common sense and refrain from triggering a conflict with Belarus as well. The measures taken by Minsk to strengthen the border are based on the principle of “reasonable sufficiency”, stressed Vyacheslav Sutyrin, head of the Center for Science Diplomacy and Promising Academic Initiatives at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations Institute for International Studies. The Belarusian leadership wants to show that it is on its toes and is trying to avoid an escalation of tensions. Minsk is ready to defend itself but also to de-escalate the situation at the border, especially by political means, the expert concluded.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva plans to attend the BRICS summit in the Russian city of Kazan, although his visit has not been officially confirmed yet, a Brazilian embassy official told Izvestia. South Africa has confirmed plans to attend the summit, with President Cyril Ramaphosa leading the country’s delegation. The presidents of Bolivia and Venezuela have also been invited. Nicaragua also plans to send a representative to the summit, the government said. Nicaragua is not a member of BRICS but is interested in cooperation with the group. In total, some 30 countries have expressed a desire to join BRICS.

Establishing a common payment mechanism will be a key topic of discussion at the summit, which will be the final event of Russia’s BRICS presidency, said Viktoria Panova, who heads an expert council tasked with overseeing Russia’s presidency. “Active efforts are underway to create a financial payment mechanism that would facilitate cooperation between BRICS countries, maintain their sovereign trade and economic exchanges. This issue tops the agenda as each member of the group sees it as important,” the expert said.

News came in late July that BRICS nations had developed a system similar to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), from which Russia had been disconnected after launching its special military operation in Ukraine. The mechanism will work on the basis of the supranational payment platform BRICS Bridge. Payments will be made in the national currencies of the BRICS countries, while the New Development Bank will act as a platform for integration, conversion and clearing. That said, it is also important to discuss ways for new BRICS members to interact with the New Development Bank, Panova added.

Other issues expected to be touched upon at the summit include regional conflicts and counter-terrorism, the expert continued. “BRICS has established itself as a comprehensive mechanism for political cooperation. All countries of the group are responsible members of the international community, which is why we are not only concerned about the conflicts taking place in Eurasia, but also about what is happening in the middle. East and other parts of the world,” Panova noted.

Media: Protesters rally against lithium mining in Serbia

The anti-lithium mining protests that took place in the Serbian capital Belgrade on August 10 were meant to spark a color revolution, said Ivica Dacic, the country’s deputy prime minister and interior minister. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic earlier spoke of preparations for mass riots with the aim of carrying out a coup. According to him, Belgrade was tipped off about the situation by Russia, Vedomosti notes.

A series of protests began in Serbia in late July, triggered by the government’s decision to restore British-Australian mining company Rio Tinto Group’s license to develop Europe’s largest lithium deposit, worth an estimated $2.4 billion. The license was suspended in 2022 under pressure from environmentalists, who argued that the environmental costs of lithium mining outweighed the project’s potential economic benefits. But in mid-July, Vucic and European Union authorities signed a memorandum of understanding, focusing on commodities including lithium.

Serbian protesters are protesting the neo-colonial practice of exploiting the natural resources of peripheral countries, pointed out Anastasia Maleshevich, a researcher at the Institute of International Studies at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. In her opinion, the environmental risks related to the mining operations of Rio Tinto are very high, while the West is clearly lobbying for the project: “Its implementation is literally linked to talks about Belgrade’s accession to the EU.” According to Maleshevich, President Vucic has found himself in a situation where he cannot actually directly say no to his Western partners. However, he can use the discontent of his people to reduce external political pressure.

At the same time, although Vucic has pointed to the “threat of a color revolution” in relation to the protests, the current situation lacks the key feature of a color revolution, being Western support for the protests, Nezavisimaya Gazeta notes. This is easy to explain: the demonstrations actually aim to undermine a project that the European Union needs. In fact, the Rio Tinto project is aimed at Moscow and Beijing. Russia has fairly large undeveloped lithium reserves, while China is the world leader in lithium processing. So the West will not support the protests, unless the Serbian president goes too far in dispersing the protesters, an unlikely scenario.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has submitted a list of 19 candidates for government posts to the country’s parliament. In addition, he has established the position of strategic advisor to the president, notes Vedomosti.

Pezeshkian has nominated Strategic Council on Foreign Relations Secretary Abbas Araghchi to be foreign minister. Araghchi was deputy foreign minister from 2017-21 and led Iran’s delegation in the talks on the nuclear deal. Deputy Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Aziz Nasirzadeh, who used to head the Air Force, has been nominated as Defense Minister. Both Araghchi and Nasirzadeh have previously visited Russia.

Vladimir Sazhin, senior researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, points out that “what Pezeshkian has proposed is by no means final because, as with previous governments, parliament never approves every candidate.” The expert does not rule out that part of the new cabinet will consist of Pezeshkian’s liberal-oriented followers, while the other part will consist of conservative politicians close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

However, Sazhin states that Iran’s government cannot pursue an independent policy because its main task is to achieve the economic goals set by Khamenei, which means that there will be no fundamental change in the country’s politics. “Nevertheless, the appointment of a new top diplomat could lead to efforts to resume dialogue with the US, restore trade and economic ties with the EU and start the process of resolving the issue of sanctions,” Sazhin stressed.

The ministerial candidates proposed by Pezeshkian can generally be described as reformers, but any dissenters will be cast aside in the approval process, said Yevdokia Dobreva, senior laboratory researcher at the Center for Middle East Studies at the Institute of World Economy of the Russian Academy of Sciences. and international relations. She points out that Washington is unlikely to change its attitude towards Tehran, while Iran will remain a de facto military and logistics partner for Russia, eliminating any chance of sanctions being lifted.

Russia continues to increase aluminum exports to Asian countries, redirecting some of the supplies that used to go to the US and Europe. In particular, Moscow raised aluminum exports to South Korea by around 20% year-on-year in the first half of 2024, strengthening its position as one of Seoul’s top three suppliers, Kommersant notes.

According to the AlCircle website, South Korea recorded the world’s highest per capita demand for aluminum in 2023, driven by the needs of automotive and electric companies.

The increase in aluminum supply to South Korea is in line with the overall trend of the growing export of aluminum products to Asian countries. According to Chinese customs, Russia exported $1.5 billion worth of raw aluminum to China in the first five months of the year, more than half of last year’s total shipments.

A market source told the newspaper that the increase in aluminum exports to Asian countries is allowing Russia to redirect some of the supplies it used to send to the US and Europe. The US imposed banned tariffs on Russian aluminum in March 2023, while the US and UK jointly banned imports of aluminium, copper and nickel from Russia in April 2024. The source says that while the EU has not yet banned Russian aluminium, Brussels is talking about abandoning its import.

Russia’s Rusal producer exports most of its aluminum. In 2023, South Korea became the company’s second largest foreign market in terms of revenue. Revenue from China increased 2.5 times, while revenue from the European and American markets fell by 40%. Kommersant’s market source expects Russian aluminum exports to China to grow further based on Beijing’s friendly ties with Russia and the size of China’s market.

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