There is a proposal floated in Russia to encourage Russians to move to the Far East with land grants:
With the population plunging to just around 7 million people across vast distances - stretching from Vladivostok on the Pacific Ocean coast to Lake Baikal in the west - local politicians, as well as Moscow-based nationalists, sounded alarm that the area was ripe for the taking by stealthy Chinese immigration. The end result, it was feared, would be that the Russian Far East would become a de facto part of China.
Putting facts on the ground in Russia's Far East to defend their gains is necessary if Russia is to preempt a Chinese threat to undermine Russian control there with immigrants to Russia's Far East:
From Moscow's point of view, it would really suck if China used Russian arguments about protecting ethnic kin abroad to intervene inside Russia, huh?
Yeah, ignoring China while poking NATO may feel good in the short run, but in the long run it is folly.
At some point, even the Chinese might realize that making claims on the Arctic region makes no sense without owning land at least somewhat closer to the Arctic