If Russia wins, and continues its hold on the Baltic Sea and the Sea of Azov, will we have a repeat of the Aral Sea?I have a cousin from Partizansk, former gulag territory just east of Vladistovok. This sounds very much like what Russia would do. Honestly it sounds like something the US would do as well. They both run quite a similar playbook.
Up there are also some NK labor camps, completely isolated and under contract of the Russian gov. Creepy stuff, with Nk propaganda posters and everything.
It just shows further proof that Russia does not have the infrastructure to capitalize on the port city of Vladivostok. They cannot sustain a huge population, nor justify building an industrial complex. Not with the distance from Moscow and any other meaningful city. They are opting to import labor for how, but this could change if they were to take over a great deal of Manchuria. Which I have labelled below on a map which displays Chinese cities with a population of over 0.8 mil. Aka cities with infrastructure that Russia would be happy to evict all occupants before claiming the territory as their own. Should it happen, the eviction process will almost certainly be assured, as that is what they did with the Germans in Kaliningrad. I imagine if the Germans stayed and mingled with the influx of Russians (of which my great grand father was one of the many to move there on exchange for a dacha we still have today) the region would not be so compliant.
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Obviously we can see that this is close to Bejing, far too close for comfort for the Chinese, especially if in war China must concede Manchuria (basically the area I have labelled), and that Russian border moves around where I have drawn.
As it stands, Vladivostok is not an ideal staging ground for an invasion given the environment and total lack of infrastructure, but it is a clearly exploitable weakness for the Chinese, should the Russians choose to be enemies of the Chinese. No doubt, when the Chinese are playing nice with Russia, they have this weakness in mind - a border that is much less of a risk on the occasion that the Chinese invade Russia, vs Russians invading China.
I cannot help but continue to draw parallels to ww2, given that the Russians basically divided Germany's army into two fronts. I can see this happening in a future war scenario, the US coming from the south and Russia using this Manchurian corridor to invade from the north, directly into Bejing, not in unsimilar to Berlin.
Many people in the US focus very hard on the present day tensions. The more recent historical events. But Russia and China are ancient, in comparison north America is like a toddler. Their perceptions are based on hundreds, of not nearly a thousand years of interactions.
Recent history can be irrelevant. For example, Peter the Great, waaay back in the late 1600s, stated that one of his greatest ambitions for Russia was to gain a warm water port.
Putin has this near the very top of his own list of goals. In fact, there are a lot of similarities between these two in terms of aspirations and strategy. Peter was a RABID expansionist, claiming ports along the Baltic Sea and Sea of Azov. Which are coincidentally similar to Kaliningrad and Crimea, two territories Russia has taken in the last century.
He modernized Russia a great deal during a time where it had fallen behind its European counterparts. While his attempts to build good favor with European powers failed miserably, he earned the "great" moniker because he brought Russia on equal footing with the most powerful countries in the world. Mainly this was done through embracing science and maritime pursuits.
While I do not think Putin and Peter are the same in many facets, it is their gameplan which mirrors each other quite well. Philosophically they have many differences, but the goals and reasons behind it are quite similar.
Hope I have not gone too off topic here. I enjoy discussing these two countries.
