Paul Goble
Staunton, Oct. 12 – Speaking at the Caspian environmental summit in Turkmenistan, Vladimir Putin said that Russian scholars were using artificial intelligence to create a virtual model of the Caspian Sea to better predict changes in the water level of that sea on the basis of global warming.
The Kremlin leader says Moscow places high priority on cooperating with other littoral states to study the situation in order to come up with strategies to prevent the current water level from falling to unprecedentedly low levels in the future (etokavkaz.ru/news/256750).
But other littoral state leaders are unlikely to be impressed by Putin’s words because as he has in the past, the Kremlin leader continues to place almost all the responsibility on global warming rather than on the flows of rivers into that body of water and calls for more study rather than specific agreements.
Azerbaijan, Iran and Kazakhstan have already moved beyond that and want to address water flow issues, the most important of which is the flow of the Caspian out of central Russia that provides an enormous share of water for the Caspian. Russia has refused requests by Kazakhstan and others to start talks on that.
Consequently, while Putin’s words are certain to attract attention because of his country’s status and his proposed use of AI, his remarks once again kick the issue down the road, something leaders of other littoral status are certain to have noticed even if out of political calculations most chose not to point out at the Turkmenistan meeting.
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