Staunton, August 26 – If Kazakhs demand that their national language takes precedence over all others in all situations in that Central Asian country, Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev warned in a television interview this week, they risk seeing their country suffer as Ukraine now is. If Kazakhstan were to “ban all languages except Kazakh,” he said, […]
Staunton, July 19 – The two countries Moscow views as its closest partners, Belarus and Kazakhstan, have refused to join its sanctions campaign against Moldova, another indication, the editors of Nezavisimaya gazeta say today, that as a result of its recent actions, “Moscow is losing its allies.” That, in turn, suggests two things, the editors […]
Staunton, May 31 – Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev said this week that Armenia could join the Eurasian Union only as a country with the borders recognized by the United Nations, a statement that clearly shocked Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan by suggesting that the union won’t support his claims on Karabakh or other portions of Azerbaijan. […]
Staunton, May 23 – The Kazakhstan authorities have brought criminal charges against Aleksandr Belov, the lead of “The Russians” national movement for recruiting and training ethnic Kazakh nationalists as part of a plan to destabilize the political system in that Central Asian republic. Belov’s alleged actions, interesting as they are in their own right, are […]
Staunton, May 6 – When Ukraine and Moldova declared their intention to sign association agreements with the European Union, Vladimir Putin reacted by speeding up his timetable for the creation of his own Eurasian Union, but that change in schedule may have the unexpected result of delaying or even undermining the formation of that Moscow-led […]
Staunton, May 3 – Despite Moscow’s promises and expectations, its Customs Union is “clearly insufficient for stimulating cooperation in the Russian-Kazakhstan border regions,” according to a Russian expert. For that to change, he says the two sides would have to develop something like the EU’s Euro-Region program — something they are very from doing. The […]
Staunton, April 29 – The Kremlin thought it had a winning propaganda theme offered up by some in the United States by “the sacramental question: ‘Do you want to die for Narva?’” Andrey Pionkovsky says, because in fact no one in the West “will ever go to war with Russia in the defense of Estonia” […]
Staunton, April 12 – The Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church has always used priests from Russia to spread its influence and that of Moscow more generally in the former Soviet republics, but now the Moscow Islamic University has announced a new twist on that tactic: it will train Russian-speaking mullahs for the Muslims […]
Staunton, April 9 – After Crimea, and apparently fearful that Vladimir Putin might target northern Kazakhstan as its next “Crimea,” Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev has slowed down if not entirely stopped his efforts to require all officials in that country to speak the national language. Until very recently, Igor Rotar says in a Rosbalt.ru commentary, […]
This article is co-written by Luke Rodeheffer and Devin Ackles. Admist the chaos in Ukraine, the leaders of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia recently convened in Astana as part of the Eurasian Economic Commission. Beyond the upbeat statements from the troika’s leaders, one topic that remains a source of anxiety is how effectively a common labor […]
