Moscow has No Strategy for Developing Siberia and Far East – and the Results are Disastrous, Buryat Economist Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Mar. 20 – Moscow talks a lot about developing Siberia and the Far East as part of its “turn to the east,” but it has no strategy, Aldar Badmayev says. And as a result, there aren’t enough railways and highways and those that exist often lead to ports that aren’t ready for the cargo they carry.
    That leads to an enormous amount of activity involving the spending of immense sums but not to development, Aldar Badmayev, a Buryat economist who earlier served as an advisor to the republic government, says (ulan.mk.ru/social/2025/03/19/povorot-na-vostok-bez-strategii-pochemu-sibir-i-dalniy-vostok-ostayutsya-bez-planov-razvitiya.html).
    In a withering critique, he says that at the present time, no one in Moscow has any strategic vision and unless something is done soon, the situation will deteriorate to the point that Russia will lack the funds to take actions necessary to develop the region and link it with Russia’s Asian neighbors.
    Moreover, he points out, the failure to think strategically means that a single terrorist attack on the Trans-Siberian railway could now cut that region off from Russia west of the Urals, an outrageous shortcoming from people who say they are constantly on the lookout to defend Russian territory and sovereignty.
    Badmayev’s proposal is to restore something like the Soviet-er Gosplan agency; but as independent Siberian economist Dmitry Verkhoturov points out in a response, Russia lacks the personnel and even the information needed to do that and an effort to recreate that aspect of the past would be disastrous (sibmix.com/?doc=15764).