Beyond Crimea by Agnia Grigas

Author:Agnia Grigas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2016-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

State Building and Shifting Loyalties

CENTRAL ASIA

Whenever one starts talking about the protection of Russians in

Kazakhstan, not Russia, I recall Hitler, who began to “support” the

Sudeten Germans at one time. I start feeling deep anxiety for

Russians who live outside Russia. Really, they did not ask to be

defended, did they? They are citizens of Kazakhstan.

—Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev, November 1993

THE FIVE CENTRAL ASIAN STATES of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan have all carved out new identities for themselves since the fall of the Soviet Union—turning inward, away from Moscow, to carry out their nation-state-building projects and attempting to develop independent foreign policies. Yet they maintain a close relationship with Russia and balance it with relations with other prominent states active in the region such as the United States and China. At the same time, the resurgence of nationalist moods in some Central Asian states coupled with strong local leaders and their personalities have to some extent driven their relations with Russia. The fact that some of these countries remain largely closed and authoritarian also affects the extent to which the Russian reimperialization policy trajectory has been successful in Central Asia, because strongman regimes have limited Moscow’s influence. The limited flow of information, especially from Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, also presents challenges in interpreting their policies in regard to Russian compatriot initiatives. In addition, each of these five states is affected by unique circumstances and has a distinct form of relationship with Russia.

In Russo–Central Asian relations, the question of reimperialization is not immediately evident. The Central Asian states were among the few former Soviet republics that never declared their independence from Russia, but rather found themselves independent after the Soviet Union was formally dissolved by Moscow. Their leaders were not even invited to the inaugural meeting of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus that set up the Commonwealth of Independent States on 8 December 1991.1 These facts could certainly bring into question to what extent post-Soviet Russia sought to keep the Central Asian states in its “empire” or subject them to its subsequent reimperialization project. In fact, however, since 1990, Russian policy toward the Central Asian states has evolved through three stages. In the early 1990s Moscow had relatively little interest in the region. During the mid-1990s, Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Yevgeny Primakov promoted increasing involvement and assertion of Moscow’s interests in the region. Starting in the 2000s under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, Russia’s presence in Central Asia became still stronger despite the fact that many of the region’s countries had long drawn a red line against Russia’s invasive activities targeting its diaspora such as passportization, protection of compatriots, and stoking of separatism.2

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