Valdai Club

Under geopolitical pressure, the Central Asian states will strive to position themselves not as a set of post-Soviet states, but as a stable and promising region for interaction with the outside world. In practice, this does not necessarily require formal signs of unification, Daria Rekeda writes.

Central Asia’s place in the constellation of Russia’s foreign policy interests is determined by its geopolitics, features of the international political architecture and Russia’s wide-ranging and multifaceted ties with the main states in the region. Central Asia is unlike other large parts of the former Soviet Union, such as its European part or South Caucasus. There is not a single Central Asian country for which confl ict with Russia could become a central element of their national foreign policy.