What the Russian papers say

MOSCOW, November 6 (RIA Novosti) Poland asks U.S. to protect it from Russia/Arms control deadlocked - analyst/Gazprom has no gas for Nord Stream pipeline/Russians panic as media report more swine flu deaths/

Kommersant, Vedomosti, Novye Izvestia

Poland asks U.S. to protect it from Russia

A thaw in Russian-Polish relations made possible by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's visit to Poland in September may reverse into a new round of confrontation.

During his visit to Washington, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski asked the United States to deploy troops in Poland to protect it against potential Russian aggression.

"If you can still afford it, we need some strategic reassurance," Sikorski said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Poland was alarmed by the Russian-Belarusian West 2009 war games involving 13,000 servicemen held in Belarus and Russia's Kaliningrad Region near the Polish border. The Polish media reported this week that the war games were held mostly to train in offensive operations spearheaded against Poland and involved a nuclear strike, the storming of beaches and an attack on a gas pipeline.

According to a source in the Russian Defense Ministry, the West 2009 exercise was held on a much smaller scale than the Soviet Union's West 1981, which involved ten times as many troops. It stipulated training to repel an attack on Russia and Belarus and had nothing to do with storming foreign beaches, the source said.

The Kremlin has not officially responded to the Polish accusation, but a high-ranking member of the Russian administration recommended the Kommersant business daily to seek explanations at the Healthcare Ministry and the World Health Organization.

Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Philip Gordon said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington that the United States considered Central and Eastern Europe "a core part of our alliance," but that reassuring the region was not simply, or even mainly, a military question.

A decision to deploy troops in Poland would deal a hard blow at the Russian-American reset policy. President Barack Obama needs to sign a new strategic arms reduction treaty with Russia before he receives his Nobel Peace Prize in December, so the White House is unlikely to do anything now that might worsen relations with Russia.

Former Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller in a comment on Sikorski's appeal said: "It is an attempt to jump into a departing train before December 1, when the European Union will elect a president, which will limit the EU countries' ability to conduct an independent foreign policy."

The deployment of U.S. military bases in Poland would give Warsaw additional arguments and ensure a degree of independence from Brussels, Miller said.

Moskovsky Komsomolets

Arms control deadlocked - analyst

After the 2008 Russian-Georgian conflict, it appeared that the United States would revert to its strategy for containing and weakening Russia, and that it would declare another Cold War on Moscow.

Although President Barack Obama is not interested in this, it would be premature to say that everything is good in U.S.-Russian relations, writes Sergei Rogov, director of the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of U.S. and Canadian Studies.

Unlike his predecessor, Obama realizes that the United States, which is unable to facilitate unilateral domination, must adapt to a multi-polar world. Obama does not consider it appropriate to needlessly antagonize Russia at a time when China, India and other centers of power are becoming more influential, Rogov said.

He wants to negotiate a new START treaty with Moscow. He has already modified the U.S. stand on NATO's expansion by not admitting Georgia and Ukraine into the alliance. Although the issue remains on the agenda, it has now been shelved, Rogov says.

The process of resetting U.S.-Russian relations has been launched but is not proceeding smoothly. Bilateral relations are still extremely fragile and vulnerable. Moscow and Washington have not made any headway in the economic sphere.

This concerns the Jackson-Vanik amendment, Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization and plunging mutual trade, Rogov says.

Although both sides want to sign the new START treaty by December 5, the talks are proceeding with difficulty. Moscow and Washington are seriously divided on the new document.

The United States, which is agreeing to deploy the same number of nuclear warheads as Russia, wants to store 150% more reserve warheads that can be re-deployed on ballistic missiles over a 12-month period. Russia, which is unable to do this, is extremely concerned about the reserve warhead potential, Rogov says.

Arms control has become deadlocked. There would be no incentives to make mutual concessions if both sides fail to accomplish this objective in accordance with specified deadlines.

Obama is to receive the Nobel Peace in Oslo, Norway, on December 10. However, the ceremony would seem quite odd unless Moscow and Washington sign the proposed START treaty by December 5.

If signed, the new treaty would facilitate new major changes in most spheres of U.S.-Russian relations. A normal partnership would develop despite persisting disagreements. But it appears that bilateral relations would move toward a stalemate unless the treaty is signed, the analyst said in conclusion.

Gazeta

Gazprom has no gas for Nord Stream pipeline

Russia and Europe do not need the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline, since it will not increase gas sales because Russian gas is the most expensive on the market, a Russian analyst wrote. Europeans prefer to buy cheaper gas, which is logical.

Mikhail Korchemkin, director of the U.S.-based East European Gas Analysis consultancy, writes that gas exports will stall at some 150 billion cubic meters, slightly above the 2009 level of 140 billion cu m. However, this amount will be redistributed.

In its presentation for investors in February 2009, Russia's Gazprom did not say anything about an increase in gas exports but focused on the diversification of delivery routes.

Korchemkin said that Russia would not quarrel with Ukraine forever and the Nord Stream project was a political way to put pressure on Poland because Russia would then not transit its gas via Poland and Belarus. Without the new pipeline, Germany would be the first to suffer from cuts in gas supplies across Poland or Belarus.

Gazprom is in a hurry to build a pipeline that will have no gas for transportation, Korchemkin said. The first leg of Nord Stream is to be filled with gas delivered by the Gryazovets-Vyborg pipeline currently under construction. Its second leg should transport gas from the Shtokman field in the Barents Sea, which will not be commissioned in time to fill the pipeline.

The projects have not been properly synchronized, which entails additional outlays. According to Korchemkin, Nord Stream will be unprofitable without additional gas exports.

Vedomosti

Russians panic as media report more swine flu deaths

The panic caused by swine flu reports has sent antiviral drug sales soaring by 50%-100%. The market was obviously unprepared to the spike in demand and drugstores quickly depleted their stock of disposable face masks.

In the past few weeks, pharmacies have been selling as much cold and flu medication in two hours as they usually sell in a week, Andrei Gusev, CEO of the Rigla chain, said. The demand for flu masks surged higher than anything else, said Kirill Druzhinin, an executive at Fialka, a St. Petersburg pharmacy chain. While each outlet before sold two or three a day, they now they sell up to 1,000, Druzhinin said. "Companies selling anti-viral drugs fulfilled their two-month sales plan in October," said David Melik-Guseinov, market research director at Pharmexpert consultancy.

Pharmaceutical retailers confirmed a record demand this month in a survey conducted by Vedomosti business daily. The usual seasonal rise in cold and flu drug sales is about 30%, but this year it is close to 60%, Druzhinin said.

The demand surged after October 24, Gusev said. Pharmacies sold 39% more antiviral drugs during the week of October 24 through 30 than the week before. Some specific products saw a 300% rise in demand, Gusev said.

A senior executive at a Russian pharmaceuticals company said demand surged after October 26.

"The public panicked as reports were heard of lethal swine flu cases. People have been trying to store enough medication in case they fall ill," said Oleg Kiselyov, director of the flu institute in St. Petersburg.

On October 30, Deputy Healthcare Minister Veronika Skvortsova said that 80% of the flu cases registered in Russia was caused by the A/H1N1 virus. Officially, 3,122 Russians have caught the swine flu since the beginning of May, a ministry official said adding that 1,200 are ill now and 14 died.

The spike in demand has caused a deficit, especially in the regions. "Distributors have run out of their stock of Tamiflu and face masks," Druzhinin said.

We often have to pressure suppliers for more stock, Yelena Ulyanova, director of a municipal pharmacy in Novosibirsk, said.

"Most suppliers have enough cold and flu medications. But flu masks are a problem, with demand for them surging tenfold," said Irina Lavrova, spokesperson for Moscow's 36.6 Pharmacy chain.

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