Press review: Kiev may step up Russia strikes as Rubio urges EU to put its interests first

TASS

MOSCOW, October 9. /TASS/. Kiev may step up strikes on Russia ahead of the October EU summit to secure additional funding and weapons, the EU delays new methane emission rules amid fears of supply shortages, reducing pressure on Russian oil and gas exports, and Rubio urges Europe to prioritize national interests, strengthen transatlantic ties, and confront common threats. These stories topped Friday’s newspaper headlines across Russia.

Escalation has become a means for Ukraine to obtain fresh funding from the European Union and demonstrate its value to Brussels in the confrontation with Moscow, the Russian Foreign Ministry told Izvestia. Although calls for diplomacy are growing louder in Europe, key Western countries and EU officials continue to support prolonging the conflict. Members of the European Parliament warn that Kiev could step up strikes on Russian territory ahead of an EU summit attended by Vladimir Zelensky. However, Ukraine is currently unlikely to be able to mount a major escalation due to severe resource shortages.

The upcoming EU summit on October 15-16 offers Zelensky an opportunity to secure additional funding and reiterate Kiev’s demand for full EU membership. Ukraine categorically rejects intermediate forms of integration. As Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Georgy Tikhy stressed, the country insists on full membership in the bloc. While accession to the EU itself could take years, securing fresh funding in the immediate term is a much more realistic objective.

The only way forward for Kiev is to escalate the conflict. Dmitry Solonnikov, director of the Institute of Contemporary State Development, believes the Ukrainian authorities are resorting to escalation to demonstrate their continued activity to European countries in an effort to secure additional funding and weapons. European leaders, meanwhile, could convince their voters that the billions spent on Ukraine are not money thrown away but a direct investment in Europe’s own security.

Members of the European Parliament believe Kiev could intensify strikes on Russia ahead of the EU summit. However, such escalation would only further diminish the chances of a peaceful settlement, French member of the European Parliament Thierry Mariani told Izvestia.

"Strikes on Russian oil infrastructure will not bring Moscow to its knees. They will only harden positions, provoke retaliatory strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure and cities, and give Russia grounds to reject any compromises," he said.

Rodion Miroshnik, ambassador-at-large at the Russian Foreign Ministry, told Izvestia that Ukraine typically resorts to escalation when decisions are being made on allocating additional funding or strengthening its capabilities. He said Kiev seeks to demonstrate in this way that the assistance it receives is supposedly being used effectively.

However, Miroshnik doubted that the EU summit itself would trigger a significant increase in attacks. In his assessment, Kiev is currently in a considerably weakened position, while its attempts at escalation are "frantic in nature" and are being undertaken at the very limits of Ukrainian forces’ capabilities.

The largest military exercises held in Latvia this year, Namejs-2026, wrapped up on October 8, involving around 12,000 military personnel and representatives of other security agencies. One of the main objectives of the drills was to incorporate lessons from combat operations in Ukraine, particularly the widespread use of drones, into NATO forces’ training. However, despite the alliance’s efforts to revamp its combat training, Western units continue to face challenges in protecting military equipment against drones and implementing new tactical approaches. Meanwhile, the Baltic states are stepping up purchases of US weapons, including attack drones whose effectiveness has been questioned by Russian specialists, Izvestia writes.

"During the current exercises, troops are training to operate a wide range of unmanned aerial vehicles used by NATO countries. These include loitering munitions such as the Switchblade, FPV drones, and various reconnaissance systems," military expert Dmitry Kornev told Izvestia.

The approach to training has changed fundamentally, NATO officials acknowledge. NATO brigade commander and Canadian Armed Forces Colonel David Brassard said the alliance was moving away from conventional training exercises toward hands-on practice of combat missions, while extensively analyzing footage of drone operations in the conflict zone.

Alongside the exercises, the Baltic states are stepping up their military buildup. Lithuania’s Defense Ministry, for example, announced that it had received a shipment of US-made Switchblade 600 attack drones.

The Namejs-2026 exercises and the Baltic states’ active procurement of US weapons demonstrate a continued effort to militarize NATO’s eastern flank, the newspaper writes. However, the limited size of deployed forces and the proven vulnerability of Western drone systems to Russian electronic warfare capabilities suggest that the alliance’s current military preparations in the Baltic region are insufficient to pose a critical threat to Russia’s security.

At the same time, European and American technological developments have long ceased to hold technical interest for Russian specialists, Dmitry Kuzyakin, chief designer at the Central Design Bureau for Robotics (TsKBR), told Izvestia.

"European drones currently offer no particular breakthroughs. They are still the same FPV drones, reconnaissance drones, ground-based robotic systems, and long-range attack drones," Kuzyakin said.

The European Union is delaying the introduction of new methane emission requirements, originally scheduled to take effect at the beginning of 2027, by at least a year. Europe fears it will be unable to obtain sufficient supplies of natural gas and oil and, consequently, automotive and aviation fuel, Rossiyskaya Gazeta writes. Europe’s largest oil and gas suppliers – the United States, Qatar, Algeria, and Nigeria – were prepared to divert their exports to other markets unless the EU relaxed the new methane emission requirements or deferred their introduction.

The EU’s decision benefits Russian oil and gas exports – had the new requirements taken effect at the beginning of 2027, Europe would have become a market with higher costs and risks for most exporting countries. However, only China and India can compete with Europe in terms of market size, meaning competition for their markets, as well as those of other Asian countries, would have intensified further. Russia would have had to offer larger discounts on its energy resources, potentially making supplies from sanctioned projects more difficult.

Having turned away from Russian oil and gas, Europe has become heavily dependent on US energy supplies. The United States accounts for more than 25% of the EU’s gas imports and nearly 60% of its liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports. American oil accounts for approximately 15-18% of the EU’s oil imports, while US petroleum products make up 17-19% of its petroleum product imports. Moreover, the EU’s overall dependence on imported oil and gas is approaching 90%. It is therefore highly likely that US statements were the main factor behind the EU’s decision.

However, as Alexey Grivach, deputy director of the National Energy Security Fund and associate professor at the Financial University under the Russian Government, told Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the EU ignored demands from the United States and Qatar to scrap the regulations altogether, opting instead to defer their introduction by only one year. This means the EU intends to use the regulations against suppliers as soon as the energy crisis ends. If the crisis continues, however, further delays are possible, the expert believes.

The EU is no longer in a position to be selective, according to Oleg Nikolayev, an expert at the Stolypin Institute for the Economy of Growth and a member of the General Council of Business Russia. Since late February, when the US war with Iran began, gas prices have risen by 140%, while diesel prices have doubled, he noted. The situation is entirely unfavorable for imposing additional barriers on suppliers.

US Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio delivered a major policy speech on the future of Europe and the West as a whole during a visit to Greece. Rubio called on the West to return to its civilizational roots, embrace the primacy of national interests without hesitation, and avert a rupture in transatlantic ties, Kommersant writes.

The central theme of Rubio’s address was the need for Europe to "awaken." The US secretary of state said Western countries had reached a "turning point," with decisions made over the next decade set to determine the West’s position for the following century. According to Rubio, the United States has already made its choice under President Donald Trump. As his remarks made clear, the current US administration regards national interests as the decisive factor in the country’s domestic and foreign policy, reserving the right to defend them, including through the use of force.

Rubio’s speech also suggested that the United States and Europe must join forces in the face of common threats, among which he singled out Iran.

Georgy Asatryan, an expert at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, described Rubio’s speech as significant. "There was a great deal of grand rhetoric, and the choice of venue was no coincidence. The Pnyx hill in Greece and the nearby Acropolis are iconic sites for Western civilization and literature. What I see here is ideology through and through – the ideology of Western expansion," he told Kommersant. According to Asatryan, Rubio is calling on Europe to return to a path of military and technological expansion.

"This represents a significant departure from the ideology of the MAGA movement and President Trump. At least the original positions of Trump’s supporters suggested something different. If not outright isolationism, there was a certain restraint in foreign policy, if you will, and a turn toward domestic priorities," the expert added.

According to Asatryan, the US secretary of state is essentially calling on Europeans to abandon neoliberalism and embark on a path of militarization and expansion. "As we know from the history of the 20th century, this is a dangerous phenomenon," the expert concluded.

European Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security Maros Sefcovic is holding talks with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao in Beijing on October 8-9 under a new consultation framework. In June 2026, the two sides established a new platform for consultations on trade and investment and agreed to use October as a benchmark for assessing their interim results. Euronews believes the stakes during the commissioner’s current visit will be "higher than ever," while the Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post (SCMP) sees this as the "last chance" to demonstrate that the dialogue is producing results. However, the European Union (EU) and China appear unable to resolve their main trade disagreements on mutually acceptable terms, Vedomosti writes.

As the Financial Times reported ahead of the consultations in Beijing, China rejected an EU request to voluntarily reduce exports of hybrid vehicles. However, the situation surrounding hybrid vehicles is just one aspect of the broader problem of China’s trade surplus, which has become a major concern for the EU in its relations with Beijing, Vedomosti writes. Importantly, the EU is heavily dependent on imports of rare earth metals from China, with that dependence reaching 90%, and Beijing has actively leveraged this since 2025. China, for its part, is seeking reliable protection for its investments in EU countries, where Chinese companies are sometimes even placed under external administration on national security grounds.

European countries are gradually preparing China for the introduction of tariffs on hybrid vehicles, according to Sergey Lukonin, head of the Sector for Chinese Economy and Politics at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO). The EU wants to protect its market while avoiding Chinese restrictions in response, and Sefcovic is now testing the waters. According to the expert, China’s retaliatory measures would traditionally involve restricting supplies of rare earth elements and products from related industries. Lukonin believes that some elements of a trade war could emerge between China and the EU, but it is unlikely to be as intense as Beijing’s trade war with the United States.

The very fact that consultations have resumed is a positive sign that both sides want to find a systemic solution, Yulia Melnikova, head of the Asia and Eurasia program at the Russian International Affairs Council, told Vedomosti. However, she noted that reaching such a solution would be difficult at the moment because the two sides are pursuing opposing objectives, while there is no political momentum to encourage a return to negotiations, including on investment.

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Fonte: TASS