Putin talks of security threat to Russia's far east

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin today warned that the country’s far east was increasingly isolated from the rest of Russia, and failure to exploit the region’s vast natural resources threatened national security.

Speaking at a Kremlin meeting of the national security council, Putin said development of the vast region, stretching east to west from the Pacific coast to eastern Siberia, and south to north from the Chinese border to the Arctic Sea, was hampered by poor infrastructure and endemic corruption.

“The far east is poorly linked to the economic, information and transportation network of the rest of Russia,” Putin said, according to a Kremlin transcript. “The region is using its natural competitive advantages, including transit corridors, very ineffectively.

"All of these things pose a serious threat to our political and economic positions in the Asia-Pacific region, and to Russia’s national security, without exaggeration,” he said.

The region covers 2.4 million square miles, but only has a little more than seven million people, according to federal data.