Paul
Goble
Staunton, August 26 – Russia has
replaced some of its real live border guards along the Chinese frontier with
straw-filled scarecrows dressed in Russian uniforms, according to Beijing’s “Peoples
Daily,” a development that suggests some Russian soldiers have found a way to
avoid service or that the Russian siloviki, given Putin’s aggressive policies,
may be overstretched.
The Beijing paper says that a reporter for the
Chinese edition of “Global Times” had approached the border to check on the construction
of a railroad bridge between the two countries over the Amur River. He
photographed the border and on enlarging it discovered the scarecrows (russian.rt.com/inotv/2015-08-25/Peoples-Daily-Rossijskuyu-granicu-ohranyayut).
The journalist discovered something
else as well: Chinese firms have constructed 60 percent of the bridge between
the Russian village of Nizhneleninskoye and the Chinese city of Tuntsian, but
there are “no signs” that Russian firms have done anything at all to meet their
responsibilities for construction.
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