Central Asian Countries have Exploited ‘Window of Opportunity’ Putin’s War in Ukraine has Given Them, Kyrgyz Commentator Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 31 – Because Moscow has been focusing so exclusively on Ukraine since Putin launched his expanded war in Ukraine in 2022, the countries of Central Asia have been able to address and solve issues that had long been considered too complicated” for any resolution, Adil Tudrukulov says.

            The five have exploited this “window of opportunity,” the Kyrgyz commentator says, to deal with complicated issues like border delimitation, building transport corridors, coordinating their policies with one another, and expanding ties with other world centers of power (exclusive.kz/ne-chuzhaja-vojna-kak-ukraina-izmenila-centralnuju-aziju).

            Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart took the lead in promoting a common front on foreign policy questions, Tudrukulov says; and Uzbekistan leader Shavkat Mirziyoyev served as “the architect of rapprochement” within the region. But the leaders of the other three countries in the region – Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan – have fully participated.

            The solution of many regional problems has further limited Russia’s influence in the region, given that many of them were of Moscow’s creation as part of its longstanding divide-and-rule strategy, the commentator continues, while acknowledging that Russian influence has not disappeared but rather has been limited by ties with other powers and a new self-confidence.

            Tudrukulov says that it remains to be seen what will happen once the war in Ukraine is concluded; but on the basis of the evidence he provides, when that does happen, one of the most important consequences of Putin’s war there may well be in Central Asia where countries are increasingly going their own way rather than remaining under Moscow.

            Indeed, the trends that the Kyrgyz analyst is pointing to mean that the war in Ukraine is yet another step toward the demise of the Muscovite empire, not only in Ukraine and not only in the former Soviet republics which gained independence in 1991 but in the other non-Russian state formations still under Moscow’s control. 

Udmurt Case Suggests Putin May No Longer Be as Committed to Naming Outsiders as Heads of Russia’s Federal Subjects

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 30 – When Putin accepted the resignation of Udmurtia head Aleksandr Brechalov just before the Duma election and then named as his successor Olga Abramova, Russian analysts focused on the problems Brechalov has had in that Middle Volga republic and his much hinted at desire to move back to Moscow.

            But an émigré analyst suggests that the key to what has unexpectedly taken place at least as far as its timing is concerned may have been provided by Putin’s greeting to Abramova when he first met with her (wschody.net/game-changer-kak-kampaniya-za-nezavisimost-udmurtii-vybila-iz-kremlevskoj-kolody-regionalnogo-tuza/).

            When Abramova entered Putin’s office, Andrey Grigoryev says, the Kremlin leader greeted her with the words “you were born in Udmurtia, right? And then worked there almost all the time?” – inquiries that Putin may be more inclined to appoint locals as governors than he has up to now. 

            Not only does that background make Abramova very different from Brechalov who was parachuted into Udmurtia by Putin as what Russians call “a Varangian” or outsider, but it also and apparently not coincidentally comes after moves by the Udmurt opposition abroad to promote the idea that only Udmurts can understand Udmurt problems and only they have the right to resolve them.

            Earlier this summer, Grigoryev points out, “a group of political emigres from the republic initiative the Udmurtia is a Free Country campaign” to promote the idea that their homeland must escape from Moscow’s control. To that end, the group announced as an alternative to the Duma vote, the election of an independent council of the peoples of Udmurtia.

            That vote is slated to take place the same day Moscow will be holding all-Russian Duma elections; but this special Udmurt election will feature one major difference: Its organizers say that “only those who are directly related to Udmurtia and the Udmurt nation have the right to decide the fate of the republic,” the commentator says.

            Putin’s words to Abramova seem to be a kind of Kremlin response to this move and an indication that in the face of political pressure from below, the Russian president may be less committed to appointing outsiders than he has been up to now lest that practice spark more resistance to them and to himself than would otherwise be the case.

            If that proves to be the case, then what has happened in Udmurtia may be “the game changer” that Grigoryev suggests. 

Moscow Opposition Figures Tried to Tell Protesters at Shiyes How to Act, But the Latter Pursued Their Own Program and Won Out, Solovyova Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 30 – Eight years ago, “one of the most high-profile, and most importantly successful protests in Russia began against the construction of a garbage dump at the Shiyes station” in Arkhangelsk Oblast, Elena Solovyova recalls. Their actions attracted the attention of people across Russia and around the world.

            But the Komi Daily journalist says that some Moscow liberals thought it was their job to tell the Shiyes protesters how to act. Fortunately, she continues, those taking part, from both the Komi Republic and Arkhangelsk Oblast, ignored that advice, continued on their own course, and won out (komidaily.com/2026/07/30/vosem-let-protestu-na-shiese/).

            Not everyone in Moscow behaved that way; but enough did, reflecting imperialist and paternalist attitudes of some of them to anyone from beyond the capital’s ring road that have limited the ability of many in Moscow to take seriously and work closely with people many Muscovites see as provincial.

            The Shiyes protests “revealed this colonial attitude very clearly,” Solovyova says. “And now, when eight years have past since they began, it is important to remember why the environmental protest against the construction of a trash dump became an anti-colonial one as well.”

            That the Putin regime and its supporters always viewed the Shiyes project as a colonial one was obvious from the beginning, she continues. Putin and his people talked about the need to shift trash away from where people lived and put It somewhere on the periphery.

            But they ignored the fact that there were people in precisely the areas Moscow wanted to put trash and that their interests needed to be protected to. That is what Shiyes showed, and that is why eight years on it must be seen as a powerful anti-colonial action, Solovoyova continues.

            Many Russian opposition figures in Moscow understand this, but a significant fraction of them still do not. They aren’t ready for people “from the provinces” to act on their own in defense of their interests and insist that such “second-class” people must subordinate themselves to the Moscow opposition.

            Had the protesters done so, they wouldn’t have created the powerful environmental defense party that these Muscovites promised. They would have given up without the victory that they won by continuing to protest. Looking back, Solovoyova says, that is what must be remembered now and in the future.

            For background on how environmental protests in regions became both political and more effective than what the Moscow opposition has tried, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/04/environmental-activism-often-seedbed-of.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/11/environmental-protests-in-russian.html,  windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/11/shiyes-protesters-victories-affecting.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/08/as-at-end-of-soviet-times-mass-actions.html.

Putin’s Much-Ballyhooed Pledge to Set Up Office to Help Russians Find MIAs Doesn’t have a Website, an Address or a Telephone Number, Soldiers’ Rights Activists Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 29 – Groups of Russians searching for relatives who are MIAs in Putin’s war in Ukraine have existed since that conflict exploded in 2022. Putin has responded by ordering the creation of a defense ministry office to help them, but that office, the Veter portal says, doesn’t have a website, a physical address or a telephone number.

            As such, it is so much “eyewash,” activists say that doesn’t help and relatives of MIAs who push for information are not given real help but instead often denounced as pro-Ukrainian disidents rather than genuinely patriotic Russians (veter.info/posts/p8LIsdJDgJbB and  novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/07/29/nagnetanie-chuvstva-zabroshennosti-i-bessiliia).

            As the war has continued and the Putin regime has adopted this stonewall approach, a new and large class of Russian citizens whose relatives have gone missing in action are increasingly alienated from the regime and speaking out in ever more radical ways.

            Russians are especially exercised by the failure of the Russian authorities to do more especially since Russian law and defense ministry regulations are very specific about the responsibilities of commanders and other authorities to go to extraordinary lengths to find those listed as MIAs.

            The powers that be aren’t doing so; and Putin’s promises, combined with the failure of the military to live up to its responsibilities and of the defense ministry to at least establish a website and phone number for those seeking information about such cases, are only adding insult to injury. 

Since 2022, Moscow has Sought to ‘Rebrand’ Jazz as an Authentic Part of Russian Tradition, Okhotenko Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 29 – As Putin increased repression in the years before he launched his expanded war in Ukraine, “music emerged as one of the few remaining areas for public dissent,” Yana Okhotenko says; but  after 2022, the Russian music scene was “transformed” both as an instrument of state ideology and a form of personal expression.”

            In a lengthy article, the Russian musician now living in emigration offers an intriguing answer to the question: “If the state turns music into a weapon of propaganda, can music in turn become a weapon of protest?” (posle.media/article/russian-music-after-2022-between-propaganda-and-protest).

            After the expanded war began, the Kremlin stepped up its “demands not just for passive patriotism from its citizens – the silent loyalty that had once been enough no longer was – and insisted on active allegiance,” thus forcing musicians who had tried to remain apolitical to choose between working for there regime, actively opposing it, or choosing to emigrate.

            She gives numerous examples of how various musicians have navigated this divide but provides an especially intriguing example in how the Russian authorities have shifted in their treatment of jazz. “From the early 2000s until 2022,” she writes, jazz in Russia “thrived as part of an independent club and festival scene” closely integrated with western artists.

            But following the invasion, she continues, the regime redefined jazz not as a recent import but “as an authentically Russian tradition, downplaying the repression the Russian and soviet authorities had inflicted on it and even making the claim that “Russia has the coolest jazz musicians.”

            That is just one of the changes since 2022, Okhotenko says. Since then, “the Russian state has not only worked to reengineer the cultural landscape but also to systematically purge independent voices.” And is has come up with as strategy that makes protest by many musicians extremely difficult.

            This tactic consists of allowing musicians with opposition views to continue to perform alongside artists that the state approves of but not advertising the participation of the former in any advertising of the shows they are part of. Consequently, many Russian artists now are in a limbo: they can continue to perform but can’t count on reaching new audiences.

            Nonetheless, many Russian musicians have left the country since the expanded war n Ukraine began. According to estimates at the end of 2022, approximately 30 percent of Russia’s professional musicians have emigrated, sometimes to halfway houses like Armenia and Georgia and increasingly often to western countries.

            These artists face many problems including making a living and maintaining a distinct national identity while integrating with the music scene in the countries they now live in. Many continue to protest but their voices are mostly heard only abroad and only by those who already share their views, limiting their impact however much Western coverage they receive.

Crimes against Women in North Caucasus Seldom Reported or Investigated, Rights Activists Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 29 – Crimes against women, including violence within the family, rapes and honor killings are seldom reported in the North Caucasus because of fears of conflicts with families and society and, when they are reported, they are seldom investigated because officials don’t want to call attention to the problem.

            That is the unanimous verdict of the most important human rights groups working in the area, as summarized by Kavkaz-Uzel; and it explains why statistics about these crimes are completely unreliable and even have the effect of distorting all-Russian figures (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/425319).

            As a result, the claims of the republic governments and even of Moscow about progress against such crimes should be treated with extreme skepticism and even disbelief, the activists say, because both social norms in the population and the calculations of officials mean that neither regional nor all-Russian figures are credible.

Kazakhstan’s Executive Branch Already Mono-Ethnic Kazakh and Its Legislative One has been Moving in That Direction, Asylbekov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 20 – Even though people who are not ethnic Kazakhs still form a quarter of the country’s population, the composition of officials in the executive branch of its government at both the center and in the region’s has become almost exclusively ethnic Kazakh and that of the legislative branch has been moving in that direction, Zhandos Asylbekov says.

            Unless this trend changes, it could exacerbate tensions in society, the head of the statistics department of Kazakhstan’s Procuracy says; but in the run up to the elections to the new unicameral legislature, it isn’t being discussed apparently because of “an unspoken taboo” (spik.kz/2667-najdutsja-li-v-kurultae-mesta-dlja-deputatov-nekazahov-i-skolko.html).

            Even in areas where ethnic Kazakhs form less than half of the population – Northern Kazakhstan and Kustanay oblasts – the minority majority of ethnic Russians and others is largely unrepresented in regional or even local executive branch positions, something non-ethnic Kazakhs have complained out, Asylbekov says.

            In the national legislature in the past, the share of non-ethnic Kazakhs has been less than their share of the population, although this metric as bounced around depending on the use of single member districts or party lists to determine outcomes, between 14 percent at its lowest point and “almost 30 percent” at its highest.

            The composition of the new single-member parliament will be determined exclusively by party list voting rather than single-member district majority voting and so that makes the decisions of the parties to include or not include non-ethnic Kazakhs on their lists critical.

            At present, most of these are far more ethnically Kazakh than is the population; and so it is likely but not certain that the new single-house parliament will be even more ethnic Kazakh than the current two-house one is and than the population is as well, Asylbekov says, noting that this could cause problems if that turns out to be the case.