Political, security and economic developments in Central Asia

My understanding was that Russia has the ties with Armenia and that Azerbaijan is the rebel... the problem child... the other Georgia in the region.

But while they appear to be more aggressive and wanting to fight the Azeris also seem to be more respectful of Russia, while Armenia seems to have Finland syndrome... ie I am a small country and my best play is to play my big neighbour off from its enemies to get good will and presents from both sides...

A sort of treat them mean and keep them keen... but they ignored the fact that Russian enemies are the US and the EU and they hate fence sitters... you are either our bitch or you are with the enemy... what we have seen with Finland and also Sweden who was not really even that much of a fence sitter... more someone who didn't really want to get involved and get their hands dirty.

The Issue for Armenia is that their government thinks it can play games, but why does it think it is so critical to Russia that they would do anything to defend them... especially when they are asking America for the help and seem to be pushing Russia away.

OK... a Hokey source, but western news footage of people in Armenia seems to show them wanting to join Europe... I understand western news footage is BS and it was probably filmed in some Ukrainian backwater with people pretending to be Armenian, but I would like to hear from someone who lives there.

Missing TheArmenian...

GarryB wrote:My understanding was that Russia has the ties with Armenia and that Azerbaijan is the rebel... the problem child... the other Georgia in the region.

But while they appear to be more aggressive and wanting to fight the Azeris also seem to be more respectful of Russia, while Armenia seems to have Finland syndrome... ie I am a small country and my best play is to play my big neighbour off from its enemies to get good will and presents from both sides...

A sort of treat them mean and keep them keen...  but they ignored the fact that Russian enemies are the US and the EU and they hate fence sitters... you are either our bitch or you are with the enemy... what we have seen with Finland and also Sweden who was not really even that much of a fence sitter... more someone who didn't really want to get involved and get their hands dirty.

The Issue for Armenia is that their government thinks it can play games, but why does it think it is so critical to Russia that they would do anything to defend them... especially when they are asking America for the help and seem to be pushing Russia away.

OK... a Hokey source, but western news footage of people in Armenia seems to show them wanting to join Europe... I understand western news footage is BS and it was probably filmed in some Ukrainian backwater with people pretending to be Armenian, but I would like to hear from someone who lives there.

Missing TheArmenian...

TheArmenian has been AWOL from here since the war back in 2020

I sure hope medium to long term strategsist in Russia have pulled the alarm over Kazakhstan. It is almost worse than 2013 Ukraine right now. The current Kazakhstan regime doesn't even maintain any pretense of alignment or friendship with Russia.

News https://t.me/sputnik/14640

The Russian Foreign Ministry summoned the Ambassador of Kazakhstan.

The reason is the return of the Ukrainian ambassador to the country, despite Astana's assurances that he will be expelled.

"This character has reappeared in the capital of Kazakhstan, and clearly not in order to "just pack up and pick up the family." Openly, he attends diplomatic receptions as the head of the diplomatic mission," Zakharova said.

Sprinter Monitor
@SprinterMonitor
A plane with Israeli soldiers on board made an emergency landing at the airport of the Iranian city of Shiraz..


Sprinter Monitor
@SprinterMonitor
Israeli TV channel war correspondent Itai Blumenthal writes:
"An IDF soldier who went on vacation to visit her family in Uzbekistan made an emergency landing in Iran last week."

Information that had been kept secret until now quickly reached the office of Chief of Staff Kochavi, Prime Minister Lapid and the Ministry of Defense.


---
Interesting place for "vacation".

It looks like NATzO agents are again attempting to foment another color revolution in Kazakhstan to install another Pro NATzO Puppet

https://t.me/DonbassDevushka/33970


Russia needs to squash this pathetic attempt by NATzO, find their sleeper agents and turn them into premium fertilizer products for export

These are Nazarbayev's sympathizers and Turkic nationalists, in one way or another supported by Turkey. Don't forget that Nazarbayev was creator of Organization of Turkic stares and organizations honorary chairman.

It looks like NATzO agents are again attempting to foment another color revolution in Kazakhstan to install another Pro NATzO Puppet

https://t.me/DonbassDevushka/33970


Russia needs to squash this pathetic attempt by NATzO, find their sleeper agents and turn them into premium fertilizer products for export russia
kvs likes this post

Have to laugh about this

Even though there is nothing amusing if being serious

Tokayev thought he was clever going down the Yanukovich route and sitting on two chairs, appeasing the West, fulfilling their requests in regards to trade with Russia. It even go to the point where allegedly Kazakhstan wasn't allowing the transit of Russian grain, while Russia was blocking the transit of Kazakh oil.

All in the quest for legitimacy, winning the upcoming election and getting Nazarbayev's money unfrozen

Wasn't enough for the West evidently. They're no fools. They want their man in power, not Tokayev's appeasement.
Hope Moscow takes the phone off the hook this time so that he can't get through.

Wasn't enough for the West evidently. They're no fools. They want their man in power, not Tokayev's appeasement.
Hope Moscow takes the phone off the hook this time so that he can't get through.

Not fools... arseholes... but not fools...

Reminds me a bit about relations between the UK and China... the new Brit PM was shit talking China for a bit for cheap support, but when push came to shove he started softening his rhetoric when it came time to talk and Xi wasn't going to let that pass and he cancelled the meetings... ha ha ha...

Everybody talking about 'protests' but I saw only three videos showing at best a couple of hundreds guys walking down a snowy road.. After which they got swiftly loaded into police vans.

The western magnifying lens... is it a protest if they want the right things and they are traitors if they want the wrong things...

Expose the people of the country to the truth and let them decide for themselves, if Russia has to save everyone... well a lot of people are going to be unhappy.

Russia certainly should help allies and friends, but these are sovereign countries that need to sort their own shit out too.

Karimov and Nazarbayev were products of the "captive nations" of the USSR. They had some sort of deep insecurity complex and
had the typical ethno-chauvnist agendas after the break up of the USSR that you would expect from such people. The problem
is that these "nationalists" ended up screwing over their countries. Uzbekistan has eased off since the Karimov path was self-destructive.
Kazakhstan is still ripening with this nationalist rot. It needs to crash to wake people up, but as we see in Ukraine, the people will live
in poverty dreaming absurd dreams before they wise up.

Karimov and Nazarbayev were nothing of the sort

The ones with a nationalist captive nation complex were in Georgia, in the Baltic State, in Azerbaijan briefly - but the Central Asian leaderships were always more level-headed

More over neither Nazarbayev nor Karimov even tried to bring about the end of the USSR, and Nazarbayev refused to take part when he was invited to the Belovezh accords or its planned predecessor.

Which is not to say Nazarbayev was some good guy or something. He rose to power on the back of the unrest in Kazakhstan against Moscow's policies in 1986, and even if he didn't want to see the end of the USSR, was endemic of its problems as this corrupt plotter state bureaucrat.
And indeed his story is that basically of steady corruption by the West, and of all the elites under him, his own family that he enriched and tried to establish as a ruling dynasty.

Karimov I'm less familiar with, but his policy was essentially that of isolationism and trying to maintain neutrality between the West and Russia, much like Turkmenistan except less extreme. He was never pro-Western as such, but excessively tried to avoid getting too close to Moscow or balance moves towards Russia with gestures towards the West, even when it made no sense to do so.
At one time in Uzbekistan there was a government program to replace Russian language learning with English-lanuage learning. But this made absolutely no sense for Uzbekistan. 95% of visitors and tourists it received and still receives are from ex-Soviet countries. Vast majority of its spare laborers go to Russia to earn. And most of its overseas students go to Russia too, with the balance made up by other ex-Soviet destinations.. only a small minority study in the US and Europe.
Long story short, after Karimov's death, the Uzbek elites warmed towards somewhat closer ties and co-operation with Russia, as the previous policy was not giving Uzbekistan as many dividends in economic development.

Kazakhstan said it will close down its trade representation office in Russia by order of the PM.

https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2023/02/01/kazahstan-likvidiruet-torgovoe-predstavitelstvo-v-rossii-a32530 (not a good website, but it appears to be true)

Kazakhstan said it will close down its trade representation office in Russia by order of the PM.

Well cutting off economic ties with Russia worked so well for Ukraine... I am sure Russia can find other places to trade with... in fact they are lining up in the rest of the world to join BRICS...

Would want to see a different source for that information though...

So they want the best of both worlds. Be part of an economic union with Russia & Belarus, get customs-free access to their markets, get visa-free movement access, for their businessmen to register companies and buy/sell in these countries without hassle.. but God forbid Russian and Belorussian truckers register as Kazakhstani ones? Where's the illegality in this?

If the EU posts an objection, then that's the EU's problem not Kazakhstan's - the citizens of whatever country registering their services and vehicles in another one is a perfectly normal thing to do. No different from merchant vessels and cruise ships flying under foreign flags to get the benefit of their regulations and tax regimes. I'm sure more ships fly under the Panama flag than Panama has sailors in total; but who gives them trouble over it?

I say Russia/Belarus throw the book at Kazakhstan and issue an ultimatum over them violating the Eurasian Economic Union's provisions. Enough is enough.

Armenia-U.S. joint exercise "Eagle Partner 2023" commenced on September 11 in "Zar" Training Center



https://news.am/eng/news/780105.html

flamming_python wrote:Karimov and Nazarbayev were nothing of the sort

The ones with a nationalist captive nation complex were in Georgia, in the Baltic State, in Azerbaijan briefly - but the Central Asian leaderships were always more level-headed

That aged well like milk.

Nazarbayev was a Kuchma variant. A quasi-closeted ethnic nationalist that came out of the closet. Kazakhstan is going down the Ukria path at full speed.
All of the Soviet limitrophe republics have the same characteristics. The post-Soviet elites all pull the ethnic nationalism card to prop themselves up and
consolidate their future. Deleting the "brotherhood of the peoples" from the USSR period is their top priority.

You can see the same dynamic in former Yugoslavia. Aside from the Serbs, every other ethnic constituent group went into an ethnic nationalist frenzy
as ethnic politicians grabbed power. The Serbs and Russians were invested in an inclusive society not fixated on their own ethnicity. So they have to
be demonized by the ethnic elites invested in the breakup of the union state.

Naturally the NATzO west is there to lubricate the hate against Russians and Serbs and to ease the new ethnic-chauvinist elites onto their plantation.
Very ironic how these ethno-chauvinist elites go into submission mode. Their nationalism is fake and all they want is wealth and local power.

Karimov and Nazarbayev were nothing of the sort

The ones with a nationalist captive nation complex were in Georgia, in the Baltic State, in Azerbaijan briefly - but the Central Asian leaderships were always more level-headed

Nazarbayev, in his time in office, tried hard to de-Russify the country, especially the north. There was a massive relocation of population from the steppes and rural south of the country to more industrialized north, which had Russian majority. Even Astana was built and made capital for the same reason. Not to forget to mention that modern northern Kazakhstan was, historically, never part of the original Kazakhstani lands. We can say that he was more cunning in his doings, but clear results are present.

Is this the correct place for this? It looks important to Russia

GEROMAN -- time will tell - --
@GeromanAT

Kazakhstan plans to connect Russia and China with a new transport route along the Irtysh

A port will be built near the village of Tugyl, and a railway will be built to the border with China on the Tugyl-Maikapchagai section with a length of 99 km. “The expected volume of transportation is 2-2.5 million tons,” said the Minister of Transport of Kazakhstan, Marat Karabaev. The Irtysh River flows through the territories of Russia, Kazakhstan and China.

One of the directions for the development of river shipping is the restoration of export traffic through the Ural-Caspian Canal. Dredging work on the shipping canal will begin next year. The Atyrau river port will also be modernized.

This route is planned to be included in the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route. The potential volume of transportation will be about 1 million tons,” the minister explained.
TASS.

One of the comments

This has been in the works for 20 years, though I suspect that it will ultimately be completed. It saves almost 40% of the time from the northern route, and more than 60% off from the Indian Ocean passage. Will utterly transform the resource rich region, too.