Kazakhstan Rapidly Moving to Become Dominant Naval Power on the Caspian

Executive Summary:

• Moscow finds itself challenged in the Caspian Sea by Kazakhstan, whose naval forces there are better prepared to cope with the sea drying up and whose focus is not distracted by conflicts elsewhere.
• Kremlin hawks such as Nikolai Patrushev are alarmed and calling on the Kremlin to devote more attention to the Caspian, which is key to its north-south corridor plans and the development of ties with Iran, India, and the Global South.
• Moscow is unlikely to take any major steps until its war in Ukraine ends, and Kazakhstan will use its growing strength on the Caspian to advance its broader interests while others, such as Iran and China, will exploit Russia’s weakened position there as well.

Three developments have opened the door for Kazakhstan’s growing ability to challenge the dominance of Russia’s Caspian Flotilla on the inland sea and become the dominant naval force on the body of water. These include Moscow’s transfer of many of the flotilla’s vessels to the Sea of Azov as part of its war against Ukraine; the drying up of the sea itself, which means there are an increasing number of places its larger ships cannot operate; and Kazakhstan’s ambitious naval construction program, which Türkiye and most recently by the United Arab Emirates are aiding  (see EDM,  August 1, 2023; Window on Eurasia, March 27, September 21, 2024; Nezavisimaya Gazeta, January 15; Orda.kz, January 16).

Given the importance of the Caspian to Moscow as a means of end-running Western sanctions and expanding ties with Iran and the Global South, this last trend has alarmed some in Moscow. Nikolai Patrushev, a Kremlin hawk, has demanded that the Russian government work to expand the flotilla to be able to counter challenges (see EDM, August 16, 2022, March 6, 2024; Kaspiskii Vestnik, November 14, 2024). As a result of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s focus on the war in Ukraine, however, that is unlikely to happen anytime soon. Kazakhstan is certain to use its growing naval power to expand its influence in the region and even put pressure on Moscow. Both the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Iran may do so as well, given their growing role in helping Russia keep the canal system that allows Moscow to transfer ships between the Caspian Sea and the Sea of Azov (Window on Eurasia, March 27, 2024).

Before the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Moscow and most of the world treated the Caspian Sea as a Russian lake dominated by Russia’s Caspian Flotilla. Even when the new littoral states emerged, many observers continued to look at the Caspian this way not only because the initial small sizes of these countries’ navies and of the ships comprising them compared to that of the Russian Flotilla but also because of the relative advantage the Russian fleet had in terms of firepower (see EDM, June 24, 2021). As a result, few have prepared to recognize two seismic shifts that have occurred over the last several years, and the balance of military power there requires rethinking.

On the one hand, and most immediately obvious, Moscow has increasingly viewed the Caspian Flotilla as a reserve for its attacks on Ukraine and has regularly transferred ships from that unit to the Sea of Azov to support Russia’s land attacks on Ukrainian targets. That use has seriously reduced the effective firepower of the Caspian Flotilla on the Caspian, cutting back the advantage Russia had relative to the navies of other countries and encouraging them to imagine a larger role for themselves. By 2020, Kazakhstan had more ships than Russia did on the Caspian, but they were, in all cases, smaller and much less heavily armed. Five years later, with the expanded war in Ukraine and the departure of Flotilla ships, Kazakhstan’s numerical advantage is greater, and Moscow’s firepower advantage far less. This has forced Moscow, however, to turn to the PRC to help keep the river-canal system open, allowing such transfers to be opened, an arrangement that gives Beijing leverage over Moscow (Window on Eurasia, March 23, 2022).

On the other hand, the Caspian’s water levels are falling rapidly, clogging ports and making it impossible for large ships to approach the shores in many places (see EDM, November 16, 2023). After resisting for years, Russian specialists now concede that Caspian water levels are falling by 68 centimeters (27 inches) a year, a decline that could ultimately point to the death of the sea if it is not reversed and will mean that many ports and links to rivers and canals will be left high and dry (Kaspiskii Vestnik, September 15, 2024). The consequences of that for Moscow’s north-south trade and ability to shift the Caspian Flotilla back and forth between the Caspian and the Sea of Azov as it has up to now are so enormous that even Russian President Vladimir Putin has felt compelled to order regional officials to do something about it. Little evidence exists, however, that his words have yet had much impact (Window on Eurasia, August 29, 2024).

These declining water levels already mean the Volga-Don canal is operational for less than nine months a year. Moscow hopes to expand that to 12 months by 2028, but this is unlikely to happen without more outside help. That, in turn, has sparked discussions about building a new and larger canal through the North Caucasus, although the prospects for that are slight as long as the war in Ukraine continues, given the costs involved and Western sanctions (see EDM, March 29, 2019, August 6, 2020, June 1, 2021).

Regarding navies in particular, falling water levels in the Caspian further degrades Russia’s advantage there and improves Kazakhstan’s relative position. Since Kazakhstan gained independence in 1991, the country has elected to develop a naval force based on smaller ships that can navigate shallower waters (see EDM, April 24, 2013). Unsurprisingly, Astana has organized naval exercises right up to the Russian sea border to show what it is now capable of, something it would not have done earlier (Window on Eurasia, March 30, October 25, 2024; Kazakh Defense Ministry, September 27, 2024). Holding such exercises helps explain Astana’s increasingly independent line concerning Russia and the appreciation of that independence by other countries in the immediate neighborhood and further afield in the Middle East and beyond.

Kazakhstan is unlikely to be the only country to respond to the relative decline of the power of Russia’s Caspian Flotilla. After a slow start, however, it has gone further than other littoral states. The other littoral countries—Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Iran—will also likely expand their naval forces there. Countries such as the PRC and Türkiye, which are concerned with trans-Caspian flows of petroleum and goods, may do as well, either directly or through surrogates. Such developments are likely to transform the geopolitics of this region, but they have already advanced far enough that it is now long past time to stop referring to the Caspian as a Russian lake and to recognize instead the other players’ roles.