Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
The Uzbek regime is losing stability because its objectives increasingly diverge from the public expectations that President Mirziyoyev himself worked to create.
The political elites of Central Asia view the invasion of Ukraine through the prism of their own interests, top of which is the preservation of their own regimes. For this reason, they will continue to show loyalty to Putin.
By continuing to rely on Russia’s ethnic minorities and foreign labor migrants to do its dirty work in Ukraine, the Kremlin is inadvertently damaging ties to its former colonies.
Some speculate that by drawing its southern neighbors into closer cooperation on gas, Russia wants to gain control over Central Asian exports to China. That won’t be easy.
Moscow had every opportunity to make the Central Asian nations gravitate toward it of their own accord. Yet now Russian soft power in Central Asia is dissipating before our eyes.
This time Uzbekistan brought together special representatives and policy experts researching Afghanistan from around the world.
It is an interesting time to see how Central Asian states perceive what's going on in Afghanistan. Uzbekistan and Tajikistan are the two main players on the border region.
All the crises that have erupted in Central Asia this year have the same underlying causes: weak political institutions, and governments that dismiss public frustration until it erupts into bloodshed on the streets.
Violent protests over proposed changes to its status have swept the autonomous region of Karakalpakstan.
In a complex, changing, and increasingly contested world, the Carnegie Endowment generates strategic ideas and independent analysis, supports diplomacy, and trains the next generation of international scholar-practitioners to help countries and institutions take on the most difficult global problems and safeguard peace. Join our mailing list to become part of our network of more than 150 scholars in 20 countries.
Sign up to receive emails from Carnegie!