The concept of “responsible neighbourhood” best describes the emerging structure of Russian-Central Asian relations, Shamil Yenikeyeff
writes. Its analytical features are quite specific: security as an indivisible category; natural resources as a common development platform and an integral part of the regional security architecture; and the sovereignty of each participant as a value enhanced by partnership, not replaced by it.
The Russian-Central Asian partnership today is a paradox of high political intensity and limited economic returns. The second Central Asia-Russia Summit in Dushanbe and the resulting Joint Action Plan for 2025–2027 demonstrated the political will for cooperation. The question remains: will this will be translated into an architecture capable of converting the declared partnership into results commensurate with the combined potential of five countries with a population of over 80 million?
The Arithmetic of Unrealised Potential
On October 9, 2025, in Dushanbe, Vladimir Putin publicly compared two indicators: Russia’s trade turnover with Belarus, and with all of Central Asia. Both figures amount to approximately $50 billion. But Belarus has a population of ten million, while the five Central Asian states have a population of around eighty million. A simple proportional extrapolation shows that trade could be around 425 billion—almost ten times the current level.
This comparison sets the quantitative framework for the entire discussion. A partnership, politically close and institutionally strong, is being economically realised at a mere 10-15 percent of its structurally achievable level. Moreover, the figure of 50 billion is a record, confirmed by Sergey Lavrov in April 2026: this is the peak value, and even at that peak, only about a tenth of the potential is utilised.
The Joint Action Plan for 2025-2027, adopted in Dushanbe, covers trade, investment, transport, energy, the environment, security, migration, and cultural and humanitarian ties. The list of areas appears exhaustive. But an agenda of this scope is closer to a table of contents than a work plan. The content of cooperation will be determined not by the breadth of the agenda, but by the depth of development of three dimensions: connectivity, environmental sustainability, and strategic agency.
Connectivity: The Visible and Invisible Layers
The transport reorientation of Greater Eurasia in 2022–2025 has made Central Asia a true transport hub for the continent. Container traffic along the western route of the North-South Corridor through the Azerbaijani-Iranian border crossing at Astara increased by almost 60 percent in 2025. According to forecasts from the Eurasian Development Bank, cargo traffic along this corridor will reach 662,000 TEU by 2030, and it is considered part of the Eurasian transport framework, which stretches over 50,000 km.
However, physical infrastructure is the most visible layer of connectivity, but not the most complex. Effective September 1, 2026, the use of electronic shipping documents will become mandatory for all cargo shipments in the Russian Federation. This is a national decision, but its consequences are regional. If parallel synchronisation in Central Asian countries is not completed, the border risks becoming a bottleneck, where the speed of cargo movement will be determined by the speed of document processing.
A similar scenario applies to customs procedures, technical standards, digital financial support platforms, and the mutual recognition of qualifications. An important pattern emerges here: at the current rate of fragmentation of global regulatory regimes, a region that has not developed its own common standards will be inclined to import those of others. This is no longer a question of trade statistics, it is a question of who creates the rules by which business and public administration are conducted. The concept of regulatory sovereignty is currently rarely mentioned in the political lexicon, but it is likely to become more common.
Climate and Water: A Topic Which Deserves More Attention
The transport agenda is articulated in detail in political discourse. Climate and water are significantly less significant, and this imbalance seems difficult to explain: in terms of the scale of long-term consequences, it is the water issue that is comparable to trade and transport.
Since 1930, Central Asian glaciers have lost approximately 30 percent of their area. According to estimates made by the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences, by 2028, water shortages in the region will become chronic and, under various scenarios, range from 5 to 12 cubic kilometres per year. The region’s population is approaching 80 million and continues to grow; water withdrawal volumes, accordingly, are also increasing.
In November 2025, at the Seventh Consultative Meeting of the Heads of State of Central Asia, Shavkat Mirziyoyev proposed declaring 2026–2036 a decade of practical actions for rational water use. This initiative sets a clear time horizon: either the region will build a functioning system for joint, mutually beneficial management of the water and energy balance within ten years, or it will face growing intraregional tensions for which economic forums will prove insufficient.
Russia possesses competencies relevant to this area: hydrotechnical and nuclear desalination technologies, agroclimatic science, and experience with large-scale irrigation systems. Its readiness to participate in the construction of new hydroelectric power plants in the region was confirmed at the Dushanbe summit. Transforming this into a strategy, rather than a list of individual projects, will require a conceptual shift: viewing water, energy, and food as a unified security framework, rather than three separate agendas. Without such a shift, the region’s economic growth will sooner or later encounter physical resource limitations—and it will do so before any foreign policy constraints.
Multi-vectorism and a Distinct Axis
In 2024–2025, Central Asian states held “5+1” summits with the United States, the European Union, and the Gulf states; a “China-Central Asia” set-up is developing in parallel. Each of these platforms represents both an opportunity and a test of the region’s ability to maintain its own agenda.
Multi-vectorism is a normal and legitimate tool for Central Asian states; attempts to interpret it as a “betrayal of allied duty” are analytically counterproductive. However, multi-vectorism works differently depending on whether a region has its own coordinate axis. If it does, multi-vectorism becomes a lever for capitalising on competition among external centres of power. If not, it leads to dispersion, with each external partner gaining influence in specific segments of regulatory and economic policy. According to EDB forecasts, the combined GDP of the five countries in the region will reach approximately $600 billion in 2026, with growth rates exceeding the global average. By objective criteria, the region already represents an independent economic pole—the question remains as to how consistently this agency will be institutionalised.
In this context, Eurasian cooperation (the EAEU, the CIS, and the Central Asia-Russia format) possesses an important structural feature: the nature of relations within it is objectively closer to equal agency among participants than in most “5+1” platforms, where Central Asian states primarily act as recipients of investments, markets, or suppliers of resources. This is not a value judgment, but a statement of the distribution of roles. This leads not to a dichotomy, but to a clarification: the question is not whether to work with the US, the EU, or China (they do), but rather around what coordinate axis this cooperation is built.
Responsible Neighbourhood as a Working Concept
If we try to formulate a concept that describes not a geopolitical project, but the actual, emerging structure of Russian-Central Asian relations, “responsible neighbourhood” comes closest. Its analytical features are quite specific: security as an indivisible category (what is unsafe for one cannot be safe for others); natural resources as a common development platform and an integral part of the regional security architecture; and the sovereignty of each participant as a value enhanced by partnership, not replaced by it.
Translating this concept into institutional design will require three steps. The first is regulatory synchronisation by 2026–2028; without it, the gap between declared and operational connectivity will widen. The second is a permanent mechanism for the joint, mutually beneficial management of water and energy balances, going beyond consultative formats. The third is a substantive renewal of multilateral institutions (the EAEU, the CSTO, and the Central Asia-Russia format): their tools were designed for the agenda of the 2010s, but they will need to address the challenges of the 2030s.
The third Central Asia-Russia Summit, scheduled for 2027, will be the first moment to assess which of the two trajectories will be more sustainable: transforming the format into a functioning framework for sectoral decision-making or maintaining it as a framework for negotiations. The answer will determine whether Greater Eurasia will prove a development space or remain a space of good intentions with a trajectory only partially converging on results.
This commentary is based on the author’s speech at the VI Central Asian Conference “Russia-Central Asia: Navigating the New World Order”, presented at the Valdai International Discussion Club, Gelendzhik, May 12-13, 2026.
