The Real Russia. Today. A Russian-Chinese island case study, Finland’s mysterious raid, and Galeotti on Putin’s Brexit blowback

Thursday, October 1, 2018

This day in history. The Russian Empire’s last tsar, Nicholas II, began his reign on November 1, 1894 (though his formal coronation wasn’t until May 1896). On March 2, 1917, he was forced to abdicate, and he was murdered along with his family and servants on July 17, 1918, in Yekaterinburg.

• Russia and China divided up an island in the Far East in 2004, and here’s how life there has changed
• Russia imposes sanctions on Ukraine
• The New York Times interviews a Russian newsman who just wants to enlighten Americans
• Finnish commandos raid an island sold to a mysterious Russian businessman
• Matt Taibbi says America can learn from Russia’s hegemonic decline
• Mark Galeotti says Russian ‘black cash’ for Brexit could bite Putin in the rear

Two countries, one island 🏝️

Located near the city of Khabarovsk, at the confluence of the Ussuri and Amur rivers, Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island has long held strategic importance for Russia. In 2004, Moscow reached an agreement with Beijing to share the island (known as Heixiazi Island to the Chinese), dividing it roughly in half. Four years later, the new arrangement was fully in effect, and each country was free to do with its piece of the island what it liked. China transformed its side of the island into a nature reserve, attracting more than 600,000 tourists every year. On the Russian side, there are about 100 people trying to survive in ramshackle homes, and all development plans have failed to secure the necessary funding. Journalist Ekaterina Vasyukova traveled to Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island to learn more about life in a land shared with China.

• Read the report here: “Russia and China divided up an island in the Far East in 2004, and here’s how life there has changed”

Russia slaps Ukraine 😳

“Russia imposed financial sanctions on Ukraine’s political elite on Thursday, freezing the Russian assets of hundreds of politicians and officials along with dozens of businesses owned by Ukrainian businessmen,” reports Reuters. Read the story here.

Don’t call him an Internet troll 👾

On its podcast “The Daily,” The New York Times interviewed Alexander Malkevich, the founder of the Russian website USAReally, which publishes news stories about violence, crime, and other nastiness in the U.S., with the stated aim of providing Americans with uncensored news about their own country.

In a thick Russian accent, Malkevich described the site’s content as “real American news for Americans produced by Russian hands,” insisting that his team doesn’t seek to meddle in U.S. affairs. Also, USAReally is funded by the Federal News Agency, which is allegedly controlled and financed by the same people behind St. Petersburg’s infamous troll factory, the Internet Research Agency.

A not-so-lonely island 🚁

On September 22, Finnish commandos raided a tiny island in an archipelago between Finland and Sweden, and no one is totally sure why. State officials say the operation was part of a “crackdown on money laundering and cheating on tax and pension payments,” but “few are convinced,” says The New York Times. The island belonged to Pavel Melnikov, “a 54-year-old Russian from St. Petersburg,” but there’s widespread speculation that he was holding (and developing) the property for the Russian military. Some of the theories even guess that the island was being prepped to “service submarines.”

Is that even feasible? “Moscow has denied so many strange and sinister things that have turned out to be true — or at least far more plausible than the Kremlin’s often-risible counter stories — that even the most seemingly far-fetched speculation about Russian mischief tends to acquire traction,” writes Andrew Higgins. Read his story here at The New York Times.

Taibbi says America can learn from Russia 🚌

Over at Rolling Stone, columnist Matt Taibbi penned a scathing attack on Americans’ growing hostility to immigrants, which he says is part of the hegemonic decline that’s already eroded even more of Russia. Both countries, he argues, are struggling for similar reasons: “drug and alcohol abuse, poor diet, despair, pessimism, suicide, lack of social mobility, poor access to health care, high income inequality.” A mix of satire and analysis, Taibbi’s text treats Russia’s “art of disinclining visitors” as a cautionary tale from which Americans might learn a thing or two.

Galeotti says Putin’s meddling is Russia’s toxic doom 🤷‍♂️

In an op-ed published in The Guardian, political expert Mark Galeotti argues that Vladimir Putin’s penchant for using “spies, trolls, diplomats, and lobbyists to take every opportunity to divide, distract, and disrupt the West” overlooks the “resilience that lies beneath the surface of fractiousness and short-termism.” In Britain, Russia’s “black cash” spook money possibly funneled to pro-Brexit interest groups could end up invalidating the entire vote, damaging Russia’s geopolitical interests once again, says Galeotti.

Why has the Kremlin embarked on this dangerous path that risks pariah status? Galeotti says Putin’s “self-harming passion for subversion” is the “toxic product of a KGB background, a nationalist’s anger at the decline of the superpower, and a lack of other, more acceptable, ways of advancing Russia’s agenda.”