Growing Chinese Involvement in Russian North Threatens Numerically Small Peoples There, Berezhkov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 9 – The largest threat to the survival of the numerically small peoples of the Russian North and Far East are the deaths of their representatives in Putin’s war in Ukraine, Dmitry Berezhkov says. But a close second involves the rapidly growing involvement of Chinese firms in place of Western ones which have left in their regions.

            That is because, the editor of the Russia of the Indigenous Peoples portal says, the Western firms were at least prepared to consider environmental arguments against this or that step but the Chinese ones who are replacing them seldom do so (sibreal.org/a/kak-voyna-protiv-ukrainy-unichtozhaet-malochislennye-narody-rossii-/33071022.html).

            Thanks to the work of Berezhkov’s portal, the disproportionate number of members of these peoples who have been recruited to fight in Ukraine and consequently the disproportionate number of them who have died have been documented (indigenous-russia.com/archives/29542), although he admits that the site’s numbers understate the problem.

            Even a small number of deaths of young men in war from these numerically small peoples represent a threat to their survival. After all, for people who number a few thousand or even less, the loss of a handful of men means that the families they would have been part of will never be formed.

            But the dismissive attitude of Chinese firms about environmental concerns may threaten these nations even more. After all, if the actions of such firms destroy the environment on which the traditional economies of these peoples depend, that will lead very quickly to the collapse of their national life and their passing from the scene.