Helge Blakkisrud

Valdai Paper #92: Russia’s Far East Initiatives in Troubled Geopolitical Times

The China–Russia rapprochement forms the centrepiece of Russia’s much hyped policy of a ‘turn to the East’, a policy aimed at transforming the Russian Far East from a territorial backwater into a new gateway to China, North-East Asia and beyond. In 2013, President Vladimir Putin declared the development of the Far East a ‘national priority for the entire twenty-first century’. Historically, the Russian Far East was rather a garrison on the distant frontier. But today there is a new development model for the region that is expected to turn it into the gateway to the East, the region of growth and cooperation aimed to reap the benefits of rising Asia, particularly China. New institutions, projects, and financing have been provided for this purpose. What progress has been made so far in implementing the Eastern vector in Russian domestic and foreign policy? Have the ambitious plans indeed borne fruits, like President Xi declared? And what are the main drivers behind the ‘turn to the East’? Do worsened geopolitical relations with Western European actors intensify the turn? Or is it driven by the perceptions of opportunities and long-term objectives in the Asia-Pacific region? The Valdai Paper #92 presents a critical and independent view on Russia’s Turn to the East by the European authors.

An Asian Pivot Starts at Home: The Russian Far East in Russian Regional Policy

To realize its ambitious goals of turning the Far East into Russia’s gateway to the Asia-Pacific, the Kremlin in 2012 established the Ministry for the Development of the Far East. Structurally, this ministry is a hybrid, with offices at the federal and the regional levels, reflecting both Moscow’s centralized take on policy formulation and the difficulties of micro-managing politics in a region distant in time and space. Analysing whether the new ministry has been a success, the author concludes that, while Moscow’s primary goal has been to open a Far Eastern gateway, a side-effect might be that the Far East will become better integrated with the rest of the country, providing for more balanced development throughout the Federation.

Introduction: Exploring Russian nationalisms

In the introductory chapter, the two editors, Pål Kolstø and Helge Blakkisrud, argue that in Putin's third period as president, nationalism has become even more important for understanding Russian politics and society than before. Prior to the annexation of Crimea, the influx of low-skilled labour from Central Asia and the Caucasus had been creating strong migrantophobic sentiments in sectors of the Russian population, boosting support for ethno-nationalism. The dramatic events in Ukraine in 2014 onwards, however, radically changed the political scene in Russia. Nationalist movements in opposition to the Kremlin went into steep decline, while the nation rallied around its leader, President Putin, who for the first time explicitly used nationalist themes in his propaganda. At first glance, this development may appear radically new. However, our introductory chapter, drawing on insights from several of the chapters in the volume, shows how this pattern has precedents in Russian history: Russian state authorities have generally tended to use other methods of legitimation than nationalism, leaving the nationalist field to various societal forces. However, in times of crisis – as during the Great Patriotic War– a state-focused, imperialistic nationalism is fully exploited as a mobilising device, and any autonomous, popular expressions of nationalism are suppressed. Seemingly an oxymoron, 'imperialist nationalism' has in fact been a strong current throughout Russian history, competing with cultural and ethnic nationalism.

'Restore Moscow to the Muscovites': Othering 'the migrants' in the 2013 Moscow mayoral elections

Today, the Russian Federation has the second largest migrant population in the world in absolute numbers. The chapter looks at what role these migrants – and migrantophobia – play in Russian contemporary identity discourse through the lens of the 2013 Moscow mayoral elections. On the eve of these elections, Muscovites identified the large numbers of labour migrants in the capital as the most important campaign issue. This chapter explores how 'the migrant issue' was addressed at the candidate level as well as how it was perceived by ordinary Muscovites. First, it traces what images of 'the migrant' the candidates presented; how they assessed the potential for integration into Russian society; and what measures they proposed for regulating the flow of new migrants. Next, drawing on survey data, the chapter discusses to what extent campaign promises reflected the positions of the electorate on the same issues. It concludes that the Moscow electoral experiment of allowing semi-competitive elections contributed to pushing the borders of what mainstream politicians in Russia perceived as acceptable positions on migrants and migration policy, for at least two reasons: Firstly, incumbent mayor Sobianin faced stiff competition from the rising star of the non-systemic opposition, liberal-nationalist Aleksei Navalnyi, and had to find a way of outbidding him on the migrant issue. Second, in this more competitive environment, Sobianin could not rely on administrative resources alone, but had to respond to popular demands, to ensure an acceptable win: therefore, he had to appear as 'tough' on migrants. The experiment with semi-competitive elections in Moscow in 2013 thus demonstrated the limits of the Kremlin’s ability to fully control Russian nationalist discourse and also contributed to reinforcing the idea of 'the migrant' as the new 'Other' in Russian identity discourse.

Russia before and after Crimea: Nationalism and Identity, 2010-17

Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 marked a watershed in post-Cold War European history and brought East–West relations to a low. At the same time, by selling this fateful action in starkly nationalist language, the Putin regime achieved record-high popularity. This book shows how, after the large-scale 2011–13 anti-Putin demonstrations in major Russian cities and the parallel rise in xenophobia related to the Kremlin’s perceived inability to deal with the influx of Central Asian labour migrants, the annexation of Crimea generated strong ‘rallying around the nation’ and ‘rallying around the leader’ effects. The contributors to this collection go beyond the news headlines to focus on overlooked aspects of Russian society such as intellectual racism and growing xenophobia. These developments are contextualised with an overview of Russian nationalism: state-led, grassroots and the tensions between the two.

Tradition, Nation und der böse Westen: Putin, Erdoğan und die Legitimation ihrer Herrschaft

Gateway or Garrison? Border regions in times of geopolitical crisis

Russia's border regions have had moments as open 'gateways' to cooperation. More often, however, the border has been viewed as a 'garrison': an outpost of state power. This chapter places the Russian Far East in the broader context of Russia's pursuit of economic development and security concerns, noting that Russian foreign policy is not necessarily uniform: there are elements of compartmentalization/disaggregation along geographical vectors. The chapter broaches the question that informs all case studies in this volume: has Russia intensified its diplomatic and economic outreach to its eastern border areas and beyond because of the recent breakdown in relations with the West—or would such a shift have taken place anyway, given the economic pull of the Asia-Pacific region?