Central Asia

On May 16, fighting broke out in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO) of Tajikistan between security forces and local residents. Protests had begun two days earlier in response to the [...]

On April 18, the Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISKP) claimed that it had fired ten rockets at a military base in Termez, a city located near the Afghan-Uzbek border. While none of these [...]

On March 12, Turkmenistan established the first modern dynasty in Central Asia by electing the son of the former president, Serdar Berdymukhamedov. Despite the many promises Berdymukhamedov made [...]

The Kremlin’s war in Ukraine as of February 2022 has proven that President Putin’s central role in the CSTO remains the main obstacle to the organisation's credibility and integrity among its [...]

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last month has put the leaders of the five Central Asian countries in an uncomfortable position. With more sanctions imposed on Russia by the West, the economic and [...]

As mass protests against the regime broke out in Kazakhstan at the beginning of the year, the first month of 2022 will go down in history as Bloody January. Is this the end of the Nazarbayev era? 

Agnieszka Widlaszewska on the relevance of the CSTO in light of the organisation's first-ever deployment of collective forces to support the Kazakhstani authorities in regaining control after [...]

“Is that your car?” Khusnidin asked, pointing to the UAZ Hunter my friend and I had rented in Bishkek. “I have a Soviet car as well, a white Lada Niva” he said proudly, as my friend plowed the [...]

In light of the recent upheavals and political unrest in Kazakhstan, Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon writes about the need to change public perception and portrayals of Kazakhstan in global news and [...]

Since 2 January, the world has watched as a relatively small protest in western Kazakhstan turned into country-wide unrest. While it may shock some to see protests over an increase in fuel prices [...]