Zamira Eshanova is a correspondent for RFE/RL's Uzbek Service.
Armenia is stepping up efforts to pull Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan into an ambitious trade corridor named after US President Donald Trump. While Bishkek has shown enthusiasm and Astana has voiced support, neither has so far committed to the project.
Days after Ukranie's president warned airlines of the dangers of Russian airspace, flight cancellations and airport closures swept Russia. Ukraine’s drone campaign has caused such disruption before, but Kyiv’s hint that it could up the ante raises the question of how much worse it could get.
Iranian President Masud Pezeshkian thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for Moscow’s position on the war in the Middle East, in their first meeting since the conflict broke out in February.
With Ukrainian drone attacks knocking out major Russian refineries, Moscow is looking abroad to fill its fuel shortfall. Russia has struck a deal to use the small private Kondensat refinery in Kazakhstan.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization turns 25 at a moment of extraordinary tension embroiling several of the regional security group’s most prominent members. For China, Russia, Iran, and others, it may be less about substance than a show of influence and independence in the face of the West.
A party formed just four months ago has swept Kazakhstan’s parliamentary election, tightening President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev’s grip on power amid international criticism over a lack of political competition, media pressure, and questions about the vote count.
Voting is under way in elections for Kazakhstan's new, unicameral parliament, but opposition groups have been excluded from the group in a tightly controlled process that follows contentious changes to the country's constitution.
As the war in Ukraine drags on, the Kremlin is looking beyond its borders for help sustaining its military machine. Russian President Vladimir Putin has recently ordered negotiations to revise military cooperation agreements with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
Prominent ethnic Kazakh writer Zhengis Reskhan faces a closed-door trial in China on an allegation of “undermining ethnic unity,” his family says, weeks after a controversial new law governing minority affairs took effect.
Three officials from Afghanistan’s Taliban government are visiting Moldova after they were granted visas. The move has triggered an uproar in the European country.
China’s expanding role in Kyrgyzstan has become increasingly hard to ignore. The situation has fueled concerns over jobs, land, natural resources, and national sovereignty, with many ordinary Kyrgyz expressing concerns that the nation's leaders are not taking their interests into account.
Ukraine's sustained attacks on Russia's oil refineries immediately plunged Central Asian countries into energy chaos, highlighting years of short-term policy decisions that have left the region without a coordinated energy strategy and sufficient diversification to withstand major disruptions.
The question now confronting negotiators is what should happen to that stockpile as part of a broader agreement between Tehran and Washington. In recent weeks, Kazakhstan has been mentioned as a possible third-party custodian.
With the Iran war disrupting traditional energy supply routes and the West seeking to lessen reliance on Russian transit networks, Trans-Caspian corridors have again emerged as a focus of international diplomacy and investment.
When Kazakhstan launched Central Asia’s first large-scale cloud-seeding program on May 17, it called it a high-tech response to drought, water scarcity, and accelerating desertification.
Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan have issued an ultimatum to Armenia, threatening to suspend its membership in the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) amid tensions over Armenia’s push to join the European Union.
The coup trial of former security chief Kamchybek Tashiev signals a major shift in Kyrgyzstan’s political system. More than a criminal case, it reflects President Sadyr Japarov’s effort to eliminate his last major rival within the ruling elite and consolidate centralized presidential power.
Kyrgyzstan has taken sweeping action to clamp down on companies suspected of circumventing Western sanctions imposed on Russia following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The entire international jury of the Venice Biennale has resigned ahead of the opening of the 2026 exhibition, following controversy linked to Russia’s return to the event for the first time since the Ukraine war began.
While diplomatic efforts struggle to stabilize access to the Strait of Hormuz amid tensions between the United States and Iran, Eurasian trade is increasingly being redirected toward overland alternatives, with the Middle Corridor emerging as a key diversification route in Eurasian logistics.
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