Between his illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 and his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Vladimir Putin announced plans to transform the economy of Kaliningrad. This increasingly isolated exclave was not only going to be a strategic foothold in Europe, but the centre for a proposed ‘fisheries cluster’, with the technology, the investment, and the human resources to counter more advanced fish processing facilities in the European Union.
Since then, aquaculture has developed definitional associations with his regime, as well as the principles on which it is built: namely, economic self-sufficiency, isolationism, and hyper-nationalist rhetoric. Facilities have opened with names such as ‘For the Motherland’ as private companies have sought to capitalise on opportunities for direct government investment. The declared investment volume is 4.2 billion rubles, with 1.2 billion coming from central reserves.
Many of these businesses would have been surprised when British ministers at the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs consented to sending eels to support one of their most extensive ‘Agriculture and Fisheries’ programmes. Britain was the enemy after all, the ‘sinkable island’ Putin supporters spoke of plunging to the depths of the sea.
Only recent the Russian Federal Agency for Fisheries terminated an agreement – developed under Tsar Nicholas II and re-negotiated by Joseph Stalin – which allowed British cod and haddock trawlers access to parts of the Gulf of Finland and Barents Sea. And it did so with great zeal, deploying ultraloyalist rhetoric to express its disdain not only for the UK Government, but the fishermen, traders, and consumers who call Britain home. The speaker of the Russian parliament Vyacheslav Volodin, a senior figure in Putin’s inner circle, delivered an impassioned speech in which he cheerfully suggested the British people should starve:
Putin returned Crimea to Russia, and he will forever go down in history as the president who returned our territory. And it’s him again, it’s his decision exclusively: he gave us back our fish. Because it was eaten for 68 years by the unscrupulous British […] Lthey themselves make forty per cent of their diet, their fish menu, from our cod. Now let them lose weight.
The Kaliningrad authorities were more surprised than most that Britain agreed to stock their waters with valuable glass eels. The gesture, out of step with the mounting tensions over fishing rights and trade restrictions, signalled an appalling lack of integrity. British fisheries, long accustomed to operating in challenging geopolitical climates, perhaps viewed the agreement as a pragmatic way to safeguard a niche export market whilst demonstrating a measure of goodwill in the hope of reopening access routes to Russian waters. DEFRA no doubt recognised that the trade would support their conservation objectives, if only on the technicality that they had passed the burden of custodianship over to Russian authorities. For Kaliningrad it was clearly an unexpected triumph, which underscored fault lines at the heart of British diplomacy.
When contacted for comment in 2017, Yuri Maslov of the oblast’s regional fisheries agency struggled to conceal his amazement that any shipments could be made available, let alone the fifteen tonnes now being discussed. He submitted an application for the provision of glass eels on a vain hope, and, ‘despite the ongoing situation, 151 kilogrammes of larvae arrived from England’. He reflects on the sequence of events with a cynicism which is difficult to miss:
To our surprise, the sanctions did not affect the project, they only affected logistics. The English authorities, who gave us permission, consider this an environmental project, because natural reserves are being replenished […] We expect that in five to six years there will be twice as many eels caught. In seven years, we expect to reach fifty to sixty tonnes.
In the six or so years since Maslov issued his press statement, the conflict in Ukraine has come to the forefront of the international conversation. Across the European Union, sanctions have been applied to avoid the transfer of resources to a hostile state. Many countries, including the United Kingdom, have supplied armaments and expertise to support Kyiv. And yet, this showed no sign of impacting the export of live eels from the rivers Severn and Parrett. The trade has increased by considerable margins year-on-year, putting the government to shame.
Short on foreign currency reserved and faced with the prospect of an economic crisis, Putin is intent on expanding underdeveloped sectors of the Russian economy, and therefore reducing risk. As mentioned previously, aquaculture is one such sector, and a particularly attractive one in that it also presents opportunities for establishing a niche in an understocked international system. The Putin Administration have worked tirelessly to justify the impetus for increasing the domestic supply, conducting surveys of varying quality which demonstrated 74% of Russians wanted to eat more fish. They have been travelling to Belarus, setting the stage for a trade deal which brings the landlocked country the benefits of access to the Baltic. And they have been attending trade exhibitions with political allies in China, Iran, and North Korea. The Federal Agency for Fisheries has reported that the Russian fisheries industry is actively looking for new markets for its new products and technologies, making its presence felt at the China Fisheries & Seafood Expo with the largest pavilion in its twenty-seven-year history.
This last detail is particularly concerning for Western commentators, as it demonstrates that the Russia Government sees the endangered European eel not only as a source of sustenance at times of war, but as a potentially lucrative resource for trade. Given the scale of demand for glass eels in the Far East, and the export bans implemented by both Britain and the European Union, the Putin Administration has the potential to monopolise the high-value international trade in live eels and eel meat. Unlike the illegal traders who are at threat of being intercepted by law enforcement authorities as they fish or transport eels, Russia’s government agencies could conduct an efficient trade with processing companies in China, earning thousands of dollars per kilo for passing on their British imports. Or they could grow on the eels themselves, cutting out the middleman to command incredible returns on their investment.
To determine where the eels go after they are processed would necessarily involve a certain degree of speculation, but there is clearly some certainty that eel imports from Britain play a strategic role in Russia’s industrial strategy. Whether it is for the professionalisation of the aquaculture workforce, as Fishnews suggests; to support the provision of luxury food products for consumption by the Russian and Belorussian oligarchy; or for generating profits from international sales to fuel capital injections in Russian enterprise, or war with Ukraine, the intentions driving this programme are manifestly at odds with Britain’s national interests. If not for the conservation of this endangered and increasingly vulnerable species, policymakers must step in to end the trade with the integrity and security of democratic Europe in mind.
Useful Resources
On cod wars with Britain:
On activity in China:
Russia’s Fishing Industry Reaches New Heights in Qingdao
Russian fish industry presented its achievements at the China Fisheries & Seafood Expo
On the aquaculture industry:
Kaliningrad Announces “Fish” Plans
Educational and production center “Fishery cluster” to be created in Kaliningrad
Inarktika plans to create a salmon broodstock in Russia
The fishing complex of Kaliningrad region
On the trade with Britain:
Regional authorities are waiting for eel larvae from England to meet demand
Kaliningrad Bays Added More Young Eels
UK supplies endangered eel to Kaliningrad
On market trends:
A new branded fish shop “Za Rodinu” has opened at the Central Market
Belarus and Kaliningrad Region Develop New Cooperation Strategy