Does Siberian separatism exist?
There is no Siberian separatism yet. And this is the main problem of Siberia. While speaking of Siberian separatism, people mostly mean the “special rights” of Siberia, unfortunately. There is no ethnic community, horizontal links between regions are weak, there’s lack of civil society institutions – all this could not make a good ground for regional separatism. The idea that Moscow is draining all the Siberian resources, leaving little of them locally is probably the only one point that unites the Siberians. After a brief upswing of regional activity in the 1990s, while the “Siberian Agreement” Association and the Ural Republic of Eduard Rossel were created, today’s regional elites are focused on the President’s administration, rather than on the interests of Siberians.