- Russian MP’s annexation comment on Central Asia sparks controversy
- Uzbekistan, Russia deny supporting annexation; emphasize strategic alliance
- Central Asia leverages geopolitical situation, avoids alienating global powers
A former separatist warlord who is now a member of the Russian parliament stated that his demand for Moscow to annex Uzbekistan and other Central Asian countries whose citizens migrate north in quest of employment was not ‘joking around.’
“I wholeheartedly support a straightforward annexation of all territories from which labor migrants arrive to instruct them in Russian precisely where they are.” Zakhar Prilepin, a novelist who fought for separatists in Ukraine’s Donbas region and is now co-chair of A Just Russia, a pro-Kremlin socialist party, stated at a December news conference in Moscow, “Not here, but in Uzbekistan, for instance.”
Tashkent and Moscow issued immediate rebuttals to Prilepin’s declaration.
In a Telegram message, Uzbek lawmaker Inomjon Kudratov stated, “Opinions expressed with such ire are in direct opposition to both international law and common sense.”
Maria Zakharova, a spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, stated that Prilepin’s remarks “in no way reflect Russia’s official position” while praising the “comprehensive, strategic alliance” between Moscow and Tashkent.
Over the two years since Russia initiated a comprehensive invasion of Ukraine, all five countries comprising former Soviet Central Asia have altered their “alliances” with Moscow and other global powers to gain economic and political advantages.
Consisting of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan, this 75 million-person Muslim region is situated strategically between Afghanistan, Russia, China, and Tajikistan. Given the region’s diverse geography, its leaders must adeptly navigate the situation.
Russia, embroiled in Western sanctions and marginalized, endeavors to preserve its diminishing influence in the area it regards as its “soft underbelly.” In contrast, Central Asian oligarchs seize every opportunity to bolster their global standing and enrich their financial portfolios.
“Central Asian nations, including Uzbekistan, have adopted a maximally pragmatic approach to the war,” said Alisher Ilkhamov, the head of the London-based think tank Central Asia Due Diligence.
He stated that their objective is to “maximize profits from the situation created by the war while avoiding conflict with key global players.”
“This situation is the most cynical manifestation of multi-vector politics,” the author writes.
Migrants and exports
Regional leaders opted not to acknowledge the annexation of four Ukrainian regions by Moscow, in addition to the 2014 conquest of Crimea.
Subsequently, a flurry of diplomatic engagements ensues, accompanied by substantial loan and investment proposals from other prominent international actors.
In May of last year, all five regional leaders gathered in Xian, the ancient imperial capital of China, to partake in the inaugural Central Asia Summit.
Beijing extended them tens of billions of dollars in loans and investments.
They met Joe Biden, the president of the United States, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York four months later.
The re-exportation of “dual purpose” goods—including but not limited to drones, microchips, electronics, vehicles, and anything else that the Russian military-industrial complex could utilize—generates exorbitant profits.
Ilkhamov stated, “The secondary sanctions imposed by the West on a handful of Central Asian companies are hardly mosquito bites.” Because dozens, if not hundreds, of companies, are involved in transit export, they could be more effective.
He claimed that the governing elites are enticed to amass wealth via shell corporations because the West is unwilling to provoke them with individual sanctions.
Despite regional governments’ prohibitions on exporting “dual purpose” items to Russia, a businessman in Almaty, the financial capital of Kazakhstan, said that “there are plenty of ways to circumvent” the ban.
In addition to expensive leather apparel, perfumes, and cosmetics, the re-export to Russia of washing machines and refrigerators whose processors can be retrofitted for military use, semiconductors, computers, cameras, smartphones, and headphones has increased dramatically in every Central Asian republic.
An additional advantage is heightened demand for the labor contributions of the millions of Central Asian migrants whose inadequate Russian was criticized by Prilepin and whose remittances increased notwithstanding instances of coerced deployment to the Ukrainian front lines.
As a result of global warming, depleting water supplies in the arid region, and overpopulation, the number of migrants is only anticipated to increase, and Russia continues to be their primary attraction.
“Not a difference”
The complete Russian invasion of Ukraine stunned governments in Central Asia.
“The elites recognized the unpredictability of Russia’s recognized policy,” Temur Umarov, an analyst of Uzbekistan descent affiliated with the Carnegie Politika, a Berlin-based think tank, said.
Said ever, they quickly realized that although the West shunned Russia, it “did not object” to their political interactions with Russia, as he put it.
Only Kazakhstan, which has a population of less than 20 million and is the ninth-largest country globally, stood out.
A limited number of Russian politicians espoused the notion of annexing ethnically Russian-dominated northern Kazakh regions. Cautiously, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev condemned the actions of Moscow in Ukraine.
However, the conflict in Ukraine is incomprehensible to a significant portion of the inhabitants of the four Central Asian states that do not share borders with Russia: Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan.
Umida Akhmedova states that a conversation she had in a bazaar with an elderly Uzbek woman is one she will never forget.
“She pondered, ‘Why do these Russians continue to slaughter one another?'”
“Many Uzbeks do not distinguish between Ukrainians and Russians,” said Akhmedova, whose pro-Ukrainian protest in 2014 resulted in her arrest and a fine even though her films and photographs once came perilously close to libel.
By the late 19th century, Czarist Russia had successfully subjugated Central Asia. Undertowering its legions were Cossack cavalry units originating from present-day Ukraine and western Russia.
Isaak Zelenskyy, the namesake of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, was tasked by Communist Moscow in 1924 with demarcating the borders among the five embryonic nations of Central Asia.
During the Stalinist “Great Purge” in 1938, he was put to death after serving briefly as the leader of Uzbekistan.
Among those who escaped the Nazi invasion of the western USSR from 1941 to 1945 were ethnic Ukrainians, as were the volunteers who reconstructed Tashkent in 1966.
Attracted by the milder climate, tens of thousands remained but swiftly adopted Russian as their daily language.
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Moscow’s soft power remains powerful in Central Asia over three decades after the fall of the Soviet Union; many Westernised youths continue to consume Kremlin-controlled television networks and online news.
One of them is Adolat Aliyeva, a 34-year-old Uzbek woman employed by a Dubai-based manufacturer of athletic apparatus.
She is fluent in Russian, English, and Uzbek and has traveled as a tourist to over a dozen countries.
However, about the Ukraine conflict, she adheres to the ideological stance of Moscow.
“Why did Ukraine not invest in Crimea’s infrastructure?” “Why did it disregard the needs of its population?” while repeating one of the Kremlin’s mantras. Zelenskyy engaged in flirtatious relations with the West. What prompted him to abandon the friendly nation of Russia?
When asked, however, who initiated the conflict that claimed the lives of tens of thousands, Aliyeva hesitated and responded, “I cannot say that.”
