From the “Spirit of Anchorage” to the “Spirit of Beijing”: The Kremlin’s New Fetish
Kremlin diplomacy has long suffered from a peculiar psychological fixation — an obsession with mythical “spirits.” First, at Sergei Lavrov’s prompting, the Kremlin elders began worshipping the self-invented “Spirit of Anchorage,” a concept virtually unknown even in the United States itself. Now, Putin aide Yuri Ushakov has solemnly proclaimed the birth of a new geopolitical phantom: the “Spirit of Beijing.” In reality, however, this latest “spirit” smells less like strategic triumph and more like the growing stench of desperation wafting from Russia’s collapsing gas sector.
Putin’s 25th trip to China, accompanied by an entire squadron of oligarch-owned business jets, was supposed to culminate in the grand signing of an agreement on the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline. During the previous visit in September 2025, Moscow triumphantly claimed that a “legally binding memorandum” on the project was already in place. Gazprom chief Alexei Miller used precisely that wording while proclaiming that the pipeline would become “the largest and most capital-intensive gas project in the world.” Beijing, notably, never officially confirmed any such agreement.
