China has strengthened its positions in Russia's Siberia

Russia is sinking ever deeper into economic dependence on China. Raw-material projects in the Far East and Siberia are turning the region into a resource base for Beijing, while local communities remain excluded from the promised benefits.

Source: Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine

Details: As an example, the Foreign Intelligence Service cites the Zashulanskoye coal deposit in Transbaikalia, which is being developed by a joint venture between En+ Group, owned by Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, and China's Shenhua Group.

Coal mining is planned to continue for a hundred years, and the Russian authorities have granted the company tax incentives. From 2027, five million tonnes of coal are expected to be shipped to China annually – roughly equivalent to 500 truckloads per day.

To this end, a new road is being built that will run just 200 m from village gardens, 1.6 km from the Yamarovka mineral-water spring and through forests home to rare plant species.

"Despite promises, local residents have not received jobs: key positions are occupied by Chinese specialised personnel. Meanwhile, the company is felling cedar forests, and efforts to reroute the road away from the protected area are being blocked by bureaucracy," Ukrainian intelligence reports.

The Foreign Intelligence Service also notes Russia's dependence on China in the tourism sector. For instance, Russia's Irkutsk Oblast is actively developing routes for Chinese visitors, while businesspeople from China are buying up land and building hotels along the shores of Lake Baikal, pushing out local entrepreneurs and increasingly referring to the lake as "theirs".

According to estimates, up to two million Chinese citizens already live in the Far East, according to Ukrainian intelligence reports.

"Thus, even the symbol of Russia's natural wealth – Lake Baikal – is gradually becoming part of China's economic interests, highlighting how much Moscow has lost control over its own resource-rich regions," Ukrainian intelligence says.

Background:

• Earlier, the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine reported that Russia is increasingly "paying" its allies in the war against Ukraine with its own territories. Lacking resources to develop its largest region – the Far Eastern Federal District – Moscow is opening the way for external expansion.
• The Service previously stated that Russia has trapped itself by ramping up defence spending and making the defence industrial base the main driver of demand.
• Billionaire Gennady Timchenko, a close associate of Russian ruler Vladimir Putin, has acquired a 50% stake in Salym Petroleum Development (SPD), a company engaged in oil production in Western Siberia.
• Russian energy giant Gazprom has signed an agreement to build the long-awaited Power of Siberia-2 gas pipeline to China via Mongolia and to expand supplies through other routes.
• China's exports to Russia in August 2025 experienced their sharpest drop since February, while imports fell by double-digit percentages after rising in July.

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