Since Russian President Vladimir Putin began his ill-fated “special military operation” (SVO) against Ukraine, subsequent international sanctions imposed in response produced the slowly mounting hemorrhaging of foreign firms based in the Russian Federation to other post-Soviet states, with many choosing to relocate to Kazakhstan. On April... MORE

When the role of outside powers in Central Asia is considered, Japan is often not among them—despite the fact that it has a unique advantage which has opened the way to considerable success in the areas where Tokyo has employed it. It is an Asian... MORE

In an aim to make itself more independent of Russia, Kazakhstan is rapidly expanding its fleet of oil tankers so it can ship more oil across the Caspian to Azerbaijan and then onward to the West via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline—rather than using mostly Russian routes... MORE

On April 10, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev paid a one-day official visit to Kazakhstan (President.az, April 10). This visit took place about six months after the first official visit of Kazakhstani President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev as the head of state to Azerbaijan in August 2022 (The... MORE

Against the backdrop of the Russo-Ukrainian war and fluctuating relations between Kazakhstan and Russia, Uzbekistan is gaining strategic importance for China as a potential stable emerging market in Central Asia. As a result, Beijing has made more concerted efforts to expand its soft power throughout... MORE

Kazakhstan has recently proposed the building of a new international gas pipeline to Russia that would run through Kazakhstani territory and connect to China (Interfax, February 22; Astana Times, March 25). The new pipeline project has emerged as a vital need in delivering natural gas... MORE

Moscow had counted on the expansion of its north-south trade via the Caspian Sea to help end-run Western sanctions (Casp-geo.ru, August 3, 2022); however, the sanctions regime, which led the Russian government to seek to expand the capacity of this route in the first place,... MORE

The early elections to the Mazhilis, the lower house of Kazakhstan’s parliament, and the maslikhats, local governments, held on March 19, marked another important step in reforming the Kazakhstani political system following the political unrest of January 2022. The reforms announced by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev... MORE

In February 2023, Uzbekistani President Shavkat Mirziyoyev announced an energy package valued at over $1 billion to ease the country’s heating and electricity needs (Tashkent Times, February 8). In this, while Russia is considered a key player in providing Tashkent with much-needed oil and natural... MORE

After almost a two-month delay, on February 23, Kazakhstani company KazTransOil finally began exporting oil to Germany, sending the first shipment of 20,000 tons of Kazakhstani oil (Biz Media, February 27). In enabling this supply, Kazakhstan reached an agreement with Russian energy company Transneft to... MORE