Russian Rhetoric Toward Central Asia Grows Increasingly Hostile - Jamestown
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Executive Summary: Russia’s rhetoric toward Central Asian countries, including Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan, has become increasingly hostile since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.  The rhetoric from Russia includes threats of invasion and annexation, reminiscent of the language used toward Ukraine before its invasion. Since the invasion of Ukraine, Russian media has escalated its attacks on Central …

Cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/9061110

The hostile rhetoric and actions from Russia have eroded trust and relations between Russia and Central Asian countries, including Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine marked a change in Russian public and media figures’ rhetoric toward Central Asia. They turned the rare hostile statement into regular lines of attack from the Kremlin’s propaganda machine. A month after the invasion, another Duma deputy, Sergei Savostyanov, offered to expand the ongoing “denazification and demilitarization operation” in Ukraine to include Kazakhstan, among other post-Soviet states.

A month after this incident, Russian television host and husband of the central propaganda figure Margarita Simonyan, Tegran Keosyan, accused Kazakhstan of “ungratefulness” and threatened the country, calling for it “to look at Ukraine” in response to the country’s decision to cancel the annual parade commemorating the Soviet Union’s victory in the World War II.

Even high-level Russian officials have made hostile statements toward Central Asia, questioning their sovereignty and statehood. In August 2022, Russia’s former president and deputy chair of the Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, designated Kazakhstan as an “artificial state” built on the territory gifted by Russia. Medvedev further blamed Astana for implementing policies that “could be classified as genocide of [ethnic] Russians”…

  • @0x815OP
    1•4 months ago

    Russia Looks to South Asia for Immigrant Workers as Flow from Central Asia Dries Up

    Moscow is looking to South Asia as a source of new immigrants to compensate for the demographic decline of the Russian population and declining numbers of migrant workers from Central Asia.

    Such a policy faces enormous obstacles given both the negative attitudes of the Russian population toward immigrants and the Kremlin’s desire to compel immigrants to serve in its military.

    Unless it succeeds, the Kremlin may not have the manpower to implement its repressive policies at home and continue its aggression abroad.