US, Ukraine Said Behind Efforts to Split Russia by Reviving Urals Republic

Paul Goble

            Staunton, September 25 – Given that the USSR fell apart along ethnic lines, most analysts have focused on the ethnic divisions of the Russian Federation as a possible source of division within that country.  But regional divisions within predominantly Russian areas may be an even graver threat to Russia, according to some Russian writers.

            Valery Korovin, the director of the Moscow Center for Geopolitical Expertise and a member of Russia’s Social Chamber, said on Zvezda television that the United States is trying to revive a Urals Republic in order to divide Russia in two and take control of the resource rich areas east of the Urals (evrazia.org/news/46791).

            “The Urals region divides Russia into a western part which for the time being would remain in Russia and an eastern part, an underpopulated area but rich in natural resources which it will be difficult to hold onto if in the center of the country were to exist some kind of ‘Urals Republic,’ which does not recognize the authority of Moscow,” the Eurasianist says.

            This portion of Russia is precisely the place “from which it would be possible to control both the western part of what would remain of Russia and the Far East, Central Asia and China. It is a strategic knot, by means of which it would be possible to control the entire Eurasian continent and control over it would give the US unlimited power.”

            In reporting Korovin’s statement made this weekend, the Eurasia portal noted that it had “frequently written about the openly anti-Russian activity of Yekaterinburg Mayor Yevgeny Royzman and his close friendship with Ukrainian Nazis” (evrazia.org/news/45799), thus combining anti-Americanism, anti-Ukrainianism and anti-Semitism in one package.

            It is likely that the Moscow analyst made this declaration because he supports sending more people to Siberia and the Russian Far East in order to hold those regions against challenges from China and elsewhere. But his words are a reminder that Russians recognize that regions may matter even more in the future than do some of the Federation’s non-Russian republics.