In late August, Russia hosted military exercises for elite forces assigned to the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). Vzaimodeystviye (Collaboration) 2015 was staged near Pskov, in the Western Military District (MD), testing CSTO rapid reaction capabilities and unit interoperability. The scenario concentrated upon a crisis... MORE

Although the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has been active in promoting its ‘One Belt, One Road’ (OBOR) Eurasian and maritime initiative during the last two years, to the north in Mongolia there has been doubt as to how Mongolia can derive economic benefit from... MORE

In recent weeks, tensions have been high and rising along Kyrgyzstan’s borders with Uzbekistan as well as Tajikistan—neither of which have been fully demarcated by the countries involved since independence. These border skirmishes have routinely escalated to the point of people throwing rocks, blocking highways,... MORE

On July 21, the prime minister of Kyrgyzstan, Temir Sariyev, issued a decree abrogating the Kyrgyz Republic’s bilateral aid and assistance agreement with the United States, which was initially signed in May 1993, in Washington, DC. The key element of this accord is the tax-free... MORE

The European Union–backed Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) project continues to gain traction against the Moscow-led Turkish Stream natural gas pipeline initiative. The game-changer in the Euro-Russian “battle” for pipelines and energy hubs could be the participation of the major oil and gas producers Iran and... MORE

In early July, Kazakh media reported on a new political initiative announced by a group of young activists headed by Olesya Khalabuzar (Informburo.kz, July 8). The group proposed the creation of a political party under the name “Spravedlivost” (“Justice”). This “new left” project seeks to... MORE

On July 6, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi kicked off his eight-day tour of Central Asia, visiting the region for the first time since taking office last May. The first country he arrived in was Uzbekistan. “I started my trip from here to underline the... MORE

Kazakhstan plans to expand its shipping fleet on the Caspian Sea and to acquire, for the first time, a blue-water one (Np.kz, July 23). Its maritime strategy is aimed to allow this Caspian-littoral Central Asian republic both to take advantage of the cost-savings of ship... MORE

In May 2015, missing Tajikistan police commander Colonel Gulmurod Halimov appeared in an Islamic State video to announce his defection to the group. While his defection caused embarrassment in Tajikistan’s capital Dushanbe, given the regime’s repressive religious policy, this development was also perhaps unsurprising. A... MORE

Turkmenistan’s President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov paid his first official visit to Georgia on July 2–3. The most important topics of the meeting between Berdimuhamedov and his Georgian counterpart, Giorgi Margvelashvili, included cooperation in the energy and transportation spheres. During the visit, President Berdimuhamedov reaffirmed that Turkmenistan... MORE