“Betrayal of national interests”: Siberian rivers are to be diverted to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and China

Maybe I am missing something? Tell me, Allies, these simple things: our country has natural heritage, we received it from our fathers and mothers, and we must pass it on to our children and grandchildren. Our land has great, mighty rivers that carry water and nourish ecosystems! Thanks to these water arteries, life can exist. Any slightest change in water levels leads to disasters, forest dieback, abnormal fires. Fewer harvests in the wild, shrinking food base, river dwellers dying.

Like arteries in our own body — make the blood thicker, and the heart will sooner or later stop. Just change the thickness of the blood — and expect thrombosis and numerous failures throughout the entire organism. Let air into your veins or drain them completely — you will die as well. I am probably saying obvious things.

So why can’t our bureaucratic officials understand these obvious things, while diligently looking for ways to sell everything off as quickly as possible for momentary profit?

Take, for example, the bill to sell off Baikal for Chinese tourists — utter nonsense! How can anyone come up with this in their right mind? Especially when leading scientists unanimously say: “Stop! You will destroy Baikal, there will be no way back! These ecosystems are fragile! Stop before it’s too late!”

And..? They tear at it like rabid beasts, hearing no one — neither common sense, nor conscience, nor expert academics.

And now they have new plans. So, the news right now, echoing from somewhere back in the USSR, where such projects were actively attempted and a whole Aral Sea in Central Asia was destroyed. The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), closely tied to the bureaucratic apparatus, is exploring the possibility of diverting Siberian rivers to Asia. Namely, they want to build a closed water intake from the main water artery of Siberia, the Ob River, to Uzbekistan. In other words, the Siberian river will essentially be partially diverted, stretched for thousands of kilometers to the south, supposedly to irrigate the drying lands of our neighbors.

This is a fully official decision of the Scientific Council of the Department of Earth Sciences of the RAS, adopted just recently — in October 2025. The Soviet plans for open canals toward Central Asia have been replaced with a closed version, meaning they propose creating systems of polymer pipes through which water will be diverted to Asia.

It is worth mentioning that the Ob is one of the greatest Siberian rivers, carrying its waters to the Arctic Ocean. This is a river of strategic national importance!

I came across comments from Moscow City Duma deputy and TV host Andrey Medvedev. He’s right to point out that the idea of turning rivers is not just stupidity, but a “betrayal of national interests,” capable of becoming a catastrophe for the country’s future. As you see, opinions are very mixed! While some actively lobby how to plunder Russia’s natural heritage, others, even within the system, are asking the right questions.

The idea of turning Siberian rivers is not new. Groups looking for what else they can profit from in difficult times for our Motherland, and where to bite off a fat piece, dig out old projects of “developing the undeveloped.” In fact, the idea of transferring water from the Ob and Irtysh to the south was first considered in Tsarist Russia in the XIX century. But the truly large-scale project of “turning Siberian rivers” was formalized by Soviet planners. In 1970, the CPSU Central Committee and the Council of Ministers approved Resolution No. 612, declaring the goal to divert 25 cubic kilometers of water southward annually by 1985. The project promised to supply water to the arid regions of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, solve the problem of the drying Aral Sea, and irrigate the steppes.

They tried to implement this gigantic idea on an unprecedented scale. More than 20 years, 160 organizations of the USSR, including dozens of research institutes and ministries, worked on it. A detailed plan was developed: the first stage — the “Siberia–Central Asia” canal, 2,550 km long, up to 300 m wide and 15 m deep, capable of passing 1,150 cubic meters of water per second. The canal was to start from the Ob, cross Kazakhstan, and reach Uzbekistan, even being navigable. The total construction cost was estimated at an enormous 32.8 billion rubles at the time, while the expected benefit was 7.6 billion rubles annually from increased yields and new farmland. The project was included in official national economic development plans, overseen by the USSR Ministry of Water Resources. Thousands of specialists worked on it, producing volumes of calculations and blueprints. It seemed that soon Siberian rivers would flow south through man-made channels.

But then, when scientists showed calculations of future catastrophes and consequences with bewilderment, the enthusiasm evaporated. Scientists stated that huge areas of forests and farmland would be flooded, groundwater levels would rise and flood settlements. Valuable fish species in the Ob Bay would die, the lives of indigenous peoples would be disrupted. And permafrost would begin to thaw (yes, yes, IT IS ALL CONNECTED), the climate in the Arctic would change, salinization of soils and formation of swamps along the entire canal route in the south would occur.

A group of prominent academics led by geologist Alexander Yanshin sent a letter to the CPSU Central Committee titled “On the catastrophic consequences of diverting part of the flow of northern rivers,” and academician Lev Pontryagin personally wrote to Gorbachev, urging him to stop the project.

That’s the scale! On August 14, 1986, the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee decided to halt all work on the project. Thus one of the grandest engineering ideas of the XX century was buried. The USSR, seemingly having unlimited resources, retreated in the face of ecological catastrophe. The “turning of Siberian rivers” began to be spoken of as a symbol of excessive human audacity before nature. The decision to save the Aral Sea by changing the flow of the Ob was considered more dangerous than the Aral problem itself.

But wherever huge sums of money can be extracted, there will always be those who want to profit. In the early 2000s, some politicians suddenly returned to the idea. In 2002, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov called to revive the project of “turning” rivers. He even published a book, “Water and the World,” and in 2009 personally promoted the revival of the diversion of part of Siberian river flow to the south in Astana (Kazakhstan). Luzhkov, known for his large-scale initiatives, believed that excess Siberian water would save Central Asia from drought and benefit Russia. But most experts reacted coolly. In particular, leading hydrologist Viktor Danilov-Danilyan (Corresponding Member of the RAS) noted that such mega-projects are economically justified only in rare cases. It’s very simple: at colossal costs, the real benefit is negligible.

I am not mentioning Danilov-Danilyan by accident — he was absolutely right: it is precisely the EXPENDITURES that attract those wishing to “turn rivers.” Just like with the destruction of Baikal now, all of this is simply a way to siphon off state budgets, not even nature itself. The victim of this “development” becomes our natural heritage, which they tear apart mercilessly.

But why have they returned to this idea now? It’s very simple — there is currently a struggle for influence over Central Asia between our state, the USA, and China. It is an ideal transport hub, with rare-earth resources and ongoing development. And recently, U.S. President Donald Trump personally gathered all the presidents of Central Asian countries, signing agreements. It seems our officials decided to curry favor with Asian countries by offering them the old project of turning Siberian rivers! Like, “Let us divert rivers for you, and you will cooperate with us.” I may be mistaken, but in 2010, Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev openly proposed to Dmitry Medvedev to return to the project of transferring Siberian waters to Central Asia. At a forum in Astana, Nazarbayev argued that water would soon become the region’s sharpest problem and that the old Soviet idea should be revived. Russian President Medvedev answered diplomatically: Russia is “open to discussing various options for solving the drought problem, including some old ideas that were once shelved.”

A similar policy is pursued toward China, which has long eyed Siberian rivers and thirsts for water. In spring 2016, then Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation Alexander Tkachev proposed starting supplies of fresh water from the Altai region to the arid Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. The project, in his view, was to be implemented through a water pipeline system passing through Kazakhstan.

A coincidence, right? Kazakhstan gets some water, and China can receive some too. Tkachev stated that Russia was ready to send about 70 million cubic meters of Altai water to China annually — about as much as is discharged through sluices in Altai during spring floods. The minister presented this idea as mutually beneficial: surplus water is wasted, so why not let it benefit China and bring income to Russia. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, with infrastructure modernization, the discharge could be increased to 1 billion m³ per year without harming the environment, using existing sites — the Gilyovskoye reservoir and the Kulundinsky main canal. It was proposed to build new pumping stations and lay a 280-km water pipeline to the Kazakhstan border. Tkachev assured that this was “in no way about changing riverbeds” — supposedly, no one was literally going to turn the Ob or the Aley, just send part of the surplus water through a pipeline abroad. Of course, “with unconditional respect for Russia’s interests and ecology,” as the minister stressed.

At first glance everything looked tempting: help a Chinese friend and earn money (the Ministry of Agriculture estimated more than 10 billion rubles in annual revenue). However, the scientific community responded instantly — and the reaction was sharply negative. Viktor Danilov-Danilyan, who had become director of the Institute of Water Problems of the RAS, called the initiative “completely thoughtless” and practically impossible. According to him, among specialists who understand water resources and inter-basin transfers, there were no supporters left for such ideas. The project, in the academician’s opinion, had neither economic nor engineering justification: overcoming the Altai highlands and pumping water across watershed divides would be enormously expensive, making the water “golden” for consumers.

It also turned out that relevant agencies were not informed about these plans. The Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation reported that they learned about the project only from the media and had received no requests from the Ministry of Agriculture. They also skeptically noted: 70 million m³ of water per year is a drop in the ocean for a large agricultural project (enough to irrigate only 7 thousand hectares of rice, for example). In fact, the benefit for China from such a modest volume is almost zero, while the effort required would be titanic. As a result, within days of the uproar, Tkachev backtracked and said the plans would not be implemented for now.

By the way, the situation clearly showed that the main interest was precisely to divert some water (the same 70 million m³ per year) under the guise of surplus, and then — once the pipeline was laid — one could scale up and pump as much water as desired. I would say it is banal: the key is to push through the necessary law or project, and then “keep cutting while it cuts.”

And now, right at this moment, the authorities are returning to the idea of diverting water to Asia, while the RAS is already openly supporting it. Moreover, at the meeting of the Department of Earth Sciences of the RAS in October 2025, among other things, they discussed “the possibilities and consequences of large-scale inter-basin and transboundary transfers of river flow.”

The resolution of that meeting directly named two of the most promising projects: the redistribution of part of the Ob’s flow to the Aral Region (on the Uzbekistan–Kazakhstan border) and the diversion of northern rivers of European Russia (the Pechora and Northern Dvina) into the Volga basin with water withdrawal to the Azov region. In other words, they want to simultaneously solve the problems of both Central Asia and the southern regions of Russia itself, suffering from drought (Rostov region, Kalmykia, Stavropol, Crimea, etc., where water is scarce).

Interestingly, Lev Gorilovsky, head of the large pipe manufacturer “Polyplastic,” was present at the meeting, and it was he who proposed the technical scheme: seven parallel lines of large-diameter pipes, each 2,100 km long. This is a closed pressure system capable, at the first stage, of pumping 5.5 billion cubic meters of Ob water per year. If necessary, the speaker assured, the system could be expanded to pass three to four times larger volumes.

As the saying goes, “money, money, and once again money.” According to Dmitry Sozonov, head of projects at the consulting firm “IES Engineering and Consulting,” total investment in such a water pipeline would be at least $100 billion, and building its main capacities would take at least 10 years.

And now, perhaps, I will show you the most interesting part of my material. Remember I wrote about the bill to destroy Baikal, where many years ago certain officials openly opposed selling Baikal lands to Chinese tourists? And now they are the very authors of the bill and are actively lobbying for Baikal’s destruction?

Well, I did not mention RAS expert Viktor Danilov-Danilyan by accident — he criticized the turning of Siberian rivers while simultaneously “climbing the career ladder.” And once he firmly sat in a soft chair in a leadership position, he clearly didn’t want to leave it! The initiator of the current discussion on turning Siberian rivers is precisely this same Viktor Danilov-Danilyan. He is now the scientific director of the Institute of Water Problems of the RAS and, in essence, the coordinator of the new project.

Fortunately, opinions are already divided even within the RAS itself. Especially among representatives of the Siberian branch. Vladimir Kirillov, head of the laboratory of water ecology at the Institute for Water and Environmental Problems of the Siberian Branch of the RAS, directly stated that the Ob diversion project is environmentally unsound and politically unfeasible. He believes that the region’s countries simply will not be able to reach agreement under current conditions — too many disputes about water exist between the Central Asian republics themselves and between them and Russia. According to Kirillov, it would be far more useful to focus on local measures — improving water-use systems in the basins of the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, building small hydropower facilities, and restoring the Aral Sea locally (as Kazakhstan did with the northern part of the Aral using the Kokaral dam).

And deputies of the Tomsk region — the very region through which the Ob flows north — also spoke sharply against the “turning of the Ob.” They called the plans to divert water abroad a threat to Siberian regions and demanded that federal authorities prevent the “sale of national heritage.”

This is the trouble, Allies! It is quite likely that in the near future Siberian rivers will actually begin to be turned toward China and the Central Asian countries, where water itself will become part of “negotiation processes.” From the standpoint of influence mechanisms, the idea is perfect — you send rivers into deserts, allow agriculture to recover, and then, if someone refuses to cooperate economically or politically, you simply “turn off the tap.”

And to speak seriously — a real horror. Just selling off the Motherland in pieces!

© PAVEL PASHKOV