Media: In Irkutsk, Putin Was Hinted At Joining China

• 20.05.2026, 7:58

The demarche of Siberian residents remains a hot topic in the Russian Federation.

A story about residents of an Irkutsk neighborhood recording an appeal to Russian dictator Putin, in which they hinted that they would not mind teaming up with China if that country solved their problems, continues to stir Russian media and Telegram channels.

New publications are appearing about residents complaining that kindergartens and schools in the city have not been completed for five years.

The Kremlin-opposed agency ASTRA also wrote about it.

Despite all appeals to city and regional officials, and even to Putin personally, schools and kindergartens stand unfinished, and construction is frozen. All five years of pounding the thresholds of their own structures have not yielded results, so the residents are ready for a desperate step.

"In case the Russian Federation is unable to build a school in our neighborhood, we ask Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov to address the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party Si Jinping with a proposal to finance the construction of our school," the activists say.

Local residents are even ready to learn Chinese if Beijing finances the construction of kindergartens and schools.

"We are ready to start learning Chinese because we believe that we really need it very much, and active development of cultural ties with China is the only way for us to develop in conditions when our country's priorities are somewhere in the zone of building new subway stations in Moscow and new schools in Tajikistan," said residents of the neighborhood.