The political authorities of Russia scare citizens, especially ethnic Russians, with the danger of Russia turning into Muscovy. A few months before the large-scale military intervention in Ukraine, in December 2021, Vladimir Putin reacted angrily to filmmaker Alexander Sokurov's words about the necessity of reforms in an online meeting with members of the Human Rights Council, stating that there were 2000 territorial claims against Russia and that NATO wanted to turn Russia into Muscovy.
After Putin, in January 2023, Nikolai Patrushev, who was then the Secretary of the Security Council, declared that the West intended to turn Russia into Muscovy.
There is no evidence or proof to support the West’s intention to turn Russia into Muscovy. However, China, exploiting Russia’s catastrophic losses in the war against Ukraine and the confrontation with the West, has started to turn Russia into Muscovy.
In the eastern regions of Russia, from Irkutsk province to Primorsky Krai, the economy has become completely dependent on China. China’s share in Irkutsk province’s foreign trade is 68 percent, and in Primorsky Krai’s foreign trade it is 90 percent.
From Irkutsk province to Primorsky Krai, the personal strength of the military forces has decreased by a few percent. The main military units that must protect the Far Eastern Federal District, which constitutes 40 percent of Russia’s total territory, from foreign intervention, primarily from China, including the 5th, 29th, 35th, and 36th combined arms armies, as well as the 100,000-strong group of the 68th Army Corps, have now been mobilized for the war against Ukraine. Having suffered very heavy losses, these armies no longer have the strength to offer resistance for even a few hours against China’s massive land forces.
The Far Eastern Federal District, which is about 7 million square kilometers, has a population of 8 million, while the number of Chinese citizens settled there is approximately one and a half million, neither less nor more. Almost all of them are healthy men aged between 20 and 50. Videos confirming that these 1.5 million Chinese carry weapons in their residential areas have been widely shared on YouTube by “dissatisfied Siberians” between 2014 and 2018.
Tens of thousands of Chinese cultivate rice and soybeans in the Amur and Jewish Autonomous Oblasts, as well as in Primorsky Krai. The lands leased by the Chinese in these regions exceed more than half of all local agricultural lands. In Zabaykalsky Krai, the area of land leased by the Chinese has reached 76,000 square kilometers, which is three times the area of Crimea. The Chinese primarily engage in logging in this area to send timber to China.
Researchers believe that the local government authorities have been purchased by China. It is widely known within official Russian circles that since 2018, the head of the Sakha-Yakutia Republic, Aisen Nikolayev, meets every six months with the Chinese Consul General in Khabarovsk and reports to him. The governor of the Amur region, Vasily Orlov, is considered more of a "man" of Beijing than Moscow. Following his order, from the first day of September, Chinese language classes were established in all secondary schools in the Amur region. In those classes, teachers from China conduct lessons using teaching materials they brought with them. It is well known in Moscow’s political circles that Aleksey Tsydenov, the head of Buryatia, and Aleksandr Osipov, governor of Zabaykalsky Krai, do everything to expand China’s presence in the region. Although the Kremlin is fully aware of all this, Putin is afraid to dismiss them because he knows that doing so would anger China. The anger of China is even more frightening for Russia than the sanctions imposed by the West, because from 2023, Russia has become a vassal of China.
One of the most obvious evidences confirming this conclusion was Moscow’s reluctance to protest the replacement of many city and area names in the eastern part of Russia with Chinese names on official toponymic maps, according to the new rules regarding map toponymy introduced by China’s Ministry of Natural Resources in 2023. Russia’s dependency on China has grown so much that Moscow did not even dare to protest the renaming of Vladivostok to Haishenwai (translated as Sea Cucumber Bay), Sakhalin Island to Kuedao, Blagoveshchensk city to Hailanpao, Khabarovsk city to Boli, and Ussuriysk to Shuangqianzi.
A few days ago, on September 3, none of China’s high-ranking officials participated in the Eastern Economic Forum held in Vladivostok. Whereas, in 2015, China’s head of state Xi Jinping personally attended the Forum. Now, however, government officials of China are openly boycotting the Forum personally attended by Putin, seemingly demonstrating that they do not recognize Moscow’s authority over these territories.
The first purpose of China’s “muscle show” at the military parade held in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II was to frighten Russia. As is known, China’s territory is divided into five military operational districts. Among these, the Northern Command responsible for the direction towards Russia is considered the strongest military formation. The exact number of combat troops in the many army units under the Northern Command is unknown. Since this is a military secret, there is no precise information in any open source about the number of soldiers and officers. However, considering that the personal strength of the Shenyang Military District under the Northern Command is nearly 400,000, it is not difficult to imagine how great a military force China has formed along the border with Russia.
Mao Zedong, the founder of China, repeatedly stated that Russia must return more than 1.5 million square kilometers to China. Even in 1949, during talks with Stalin in Moscow, Mao presented China’s demand. After receiving a refusal from Stalin, Mao determined this task as the main duty for the generations after him. Now, it seems that Xi Jinping wants to become the greatest statesman in China’s history by completely taking over Russia’s Far Eastern Federal District, which is about 7 million square kilometers in size.
Exploiting the criminal folly of Russia’s military-political elite, with Putin at the forefront, China is multiplying its military superiority to an unimaginable degree and, at the same time, economically making Russia dependent on itself, turning Russia into Muscovy. From now on, Russia has no chance to save itself from this fate by its own power.
China, which does not hesitate to change the names of Russian cities and is seizing about 7 million square kilometers or 40 percent of Russia’s territory, will turn Russia into Muscovy. The situation has become such that the Russians do not even have the courage to protest against this.
Xagani Jafarli,
political analyst
