Putin's Private Siberian Project Excludes Alexei Navalny

Two-dimensional maps often show Russia on the far right side and the United States all the way over on the left. This separation provides the false impression the countries are far apart. But as John McCain's vice presidential running mate, Sarah Palin, famously observed, she could see Russia from her kitchen window. Presumably, Russia's President Vladimir Putin can see the United Staes from a Siberian window. And lately, US military planes have intercepted Russian planes snooping from the skies over Alaska. Climate change turned Siberia, once identified with Russian prison camps in an inhospitable frozen wasteland, into what President Putin calls the East Sibrian Sea's Northern Sea Route "a matter of national pride." With increased seasonal passage through Arctic waters comes faster market access for oil and gas from Russia's Yamal Penninsula and a new military option. Beginning on September, 11, 2018, Russia, China and Mongolia participated in Vostok-2018, a massive military exercise in Siberia. By the middle of 2020, Vladimir Putin, who considered the collapse of the USSR the 20th century's geopolitical disaster, felt confident. Russia tamed the Chechnya separatists in 2000 and annexed Crimea in 2014. Possible domination of Georgia and Belarus was still in play. The US was about to walk away from an Open Skies Treaty, resisted by the Kremlin ever since one was designed to prevent surprise attacks after World War II. Refusing to authorize treaty-permtted flights over Russia's military exercises and staging areas for nuclear weapons aimed at Europe provoked the US to designate a final November, 2020 participation date. Russia already interfered with US elections in 2016 and was prepared to do so again in 2020. On July 1, 2020, voters approved a referendum allowing a Russian president to serve two consecutive 6-year terms after the next election, when the current term of President Putin, age 67, ends in 2024. At this propitious moment, Putin's political nemesis, Alexei Navalny, arrived in Siberia. Mr. Navalny's anti-corruption message had gained traction in Russia's urban areas, where his slick YouTube delivery system skirted state-owned media and inspired massive protests when Putin decided to return to the presidency in 2012. By 2020, Navalny was far outside Russia's major cities schooling opposition city council candidates who won two seats and ousted the majority held by Putin's United Russian party in the student town of Tomsk in Siberia's elections on Sunday, September 13, 2020. By winning one seat in Novosibirsk and uniting with three other independent candidates, the United Russian party also seemed likely to lose its majority there. Timing favored Mr. Navalny's opposition party, since the coronavirus exposed the effect of falling oil prices on a falling standard of living, while Putin's wealthy oligarchy buddies remained untouched. On the plane back to Moscow from Siberia, Mr. Navalny became seriously ill. The plane made an emergency landing in Omsk, Siberia, where Alexei spent two days in a coma before the Kremlin allowed a plane to fly him to Germany on August 22, 2020. There, and also later in laboratories in France and Sweden, doctors determined he was exposed to the nerve gas chemical weapon, Novichok, the same poison that nearly killed the former Russian spy, Sergei Skripal, in England. On Tuesday, September 8, 2020, a masked man threw a foul-smelling liquid into the offices of Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation in Novosibirsk, Siberia. By Wednesday, September 9, German officials announced the attack on Navalny forced them to reconsider Gazprom's Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline between Germany and Russia, which already is a source of controversy in Germany and Poland. Although Mr. Navalny came out of his coma on Monday, September 7, 2020, and could walk a short distance by September 14, German physicians remain uncertain about the extent of his long-term recovery. German doctors released Mr. Navalny from the hospital on September, 22, 2020. He will remain in Germany for rehabilitation but has expressed his intention to return to Russia, where court orders have frozen his bank accounts and, on August 27, 2020, seized his apartment to prevent it from being "sold, donated, or mortgaged." Knowing Mr. Navalny will be greeted with a rousing rally when he returns to Moscow, Putin certainly is planning to counter his reception. It is interesting to note how enthusiastic Vladimir Putin was about Siberia, when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited him in 2010. He took her to a map in his dacha's private office to show her the areas where he was involved in saving Siberian tigers and polar bears from extinction. An earlier post, "North Pole Flag," also details Russia's continuing interest in the Arctic.

Beijing Meets Its Match

Continuous protests begun in Hong Kong in early June, 2019, achieved results on September 4, 2019. The government withdrew a bill that would have required those charged with domestic crimes to be transferred to mainland China for trial. Nonetheless, Hong Kong's leader, Ms. Carrie Lam, failed to resign and protests could continue.

     When China's President Xi Jinping visited Hong Kong for the first time in July, 2017, he said attempts to challenge Beijing's sovereignty, security, and power were "impermissible." On June 30, 2017, a spokesman for China's foreign ministry had said Beijing no longer considered itself bound by the 1984 Sino-British treaty that ended the UK's rule and prepared Hong Kong to become a semi-autonomous region of China for 50 years.

     Under terms of a secret provisional agreement, on August 26, 2019, atheistic China allowed the Roman Catholic Pope, Francis I, to ordain Bishop Anthony Yao Shun of Jining in China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region and Bishop Stephen Xu Hongwei of Hanzhong in Shaanxi. Previously, Beijing claimed such appointments would be considered foreign interference with China's internal affairs.

How the World Shapes Up

Michigan looks like a mitten to people who live there. What other shapes can children find when they look at maps and atlases of the world?

     Whether it's in their first books, on "Sesame Street," or connecting puzzle pieces, children learn about shapes. Apply this concept to the world, and they will see Italy looks like a boot. The Red Sea is a string bean, and Paraguay and The Gambia are shaped like peanuts. In Africa, some call Zambia the butterfly country because of its shape. My granddaughter thinks Chad looks like a face, and it has a man's name besides. Doesn't India look like a triangle? Lake Victoria is a circle, and there are so many ovals: Madagascar, Taiwan, Mongolia.

     Multicultural Kids (multiculturalkids.com) sells a China puzzle to give children hands-on experience with shapes in that country, while "World GeoPuzzle" from Museumtour.com does the same for the world. And, if you have an expendable world map, kids can point out shapes they would like to cut out and label.