These findings point to the emergence of what might be called a postimperial Navalny constituency in Russian society: a younger, more globalized, mainly urban segment of the population that was growing year on year and wanted Russia to be a postimperial, normal country. If these trends had continued for another generation, they would have posed a threat to the Putin regime.
Russian exceptionalism and the threat of the West are useful weapons in this domestic battle. Political scientist Kirill Rogov has pointed out that Putin’s popularity has peaked roughly every seven years as a result of a military campaign: in 2000 after he launched the war in Chechnya, in 2008 with the war in Georgia, and in 2015 after the annexation of Crimea. In each case, his ratings declined after cresting a wave.
An even bigger foreign military adventure in 2022 enabled Putin to silence dissenting voices or force them into exile to rally the population around the flag and reconsolidate public support, which, the regime feared, was gradually dissipating. By making the war in Ukraine an existential issue for Russia and, by implication, his own regime, Putin was thereby also seeking to save himself.
Elite Compacts
If the need for regime survival is key to Putin’s aggression in Ukraine, it casts Russia’s relations with its other post-Soviet neighbors in a more instrumentalist light. Regime type and elites’ Soviet backgrounds are fairly good predictors of whether Moscow still deems a country to be a reliable partner.
Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan are one-party states. Many of their leaders are either former Soviet cadres or of an age that they were raised and educated in the Soviet Union. Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, and Tokayev are both graduates of elite Moscow universities.
Since the war in Ukraine, these leaders have adopted a two-prong survival strategy. They have reduced their security dependence on Russia and asked for and received international legitimation of their countries’ sovereignty. At the same time, they have looked to forge elite-to-elite compacts with Moscow that provide guarantees of regime preservation. It is indicative that while Russia did not intervene in Central Asia in 2010 or 2022 when interethnic conflict was costing lives, it did intervene in Kazakhstan in January 2022 to support Tokayev’s rule there.
Autocratic leaders seem to know where Russia’s redlines are. Institutional collaboration with the EU or NATO—as opposed to ad hoc partnerships on certain issues—seems to be one limit not to be crossed. Another demand is that leaders demonstrate respect for the Russian language—not so hard when they are all fluent Russian speakers. Thus, Aliyev makes the fact that there are more than 300 Russian-language schools in Azerbaijan a regular talking point with his Russian counterpart and told Putin in 2022 that the Russian language is “a very important basis of our relations and future ties.”53 Tokayev made headlines in November 2023 by speaking Kazakh, not Russian, at a public meeting with Putin.54 A month earlier, however, an intergovernmental meeting in Kyrgyzstan inaugurated the International Organization for the Russian Language, which Tokayev had personally promoted.55
These autocratic leaders share with the Putin regime a fear of a variation of the Arab Spring revolts that began in 2010 or a color revolution, a popular democratic uprising supported by Western pro-democracy nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Elites use the name “Soros”—in reference to billionaire philanthropist George Soros—as a shorthand for Western-inspired regime change or the instigation of disorder, even in democratic Georgia or countries where Soros’s Open Society Foundations were long ago forced to shut down their activities, such as Uzbekistan.56
Aliyev spelled this fear out at length in a February 2022 speech to a youth forum in Baku. He warned young people that they were the targets of “globalists, or I provisionally call them ‘Sorosians,’ [with] a destructive mission—to stir up the youth against their state.” Aliyev listed Western NGOs, among them Amnesty International and Freedom House, and media outlets, such as the New York Times and the Washington Post, which, he said, had plotted to depose him. “And in all of them Armenians play a leading role,” he added. Aliyev went on to name “Soros and the organizations he controls.”57
In countering these threats, whether real or imagined, it is easy for these autocratic rulers to find common cause with Russia, which will never criticize the conduct of elections and—as long as the regimes do not cross Moscow’s redlines—will not foment regime change.
Contrast this approach with Russia’s relations with the leaders of Armenia, Moldova, and Ukraine—Nikol Pashinyan, Maia Sandu, and Volodymyr Zelensky—who were all born in the 1970s, too late to be adults in the Soviet Union; received a different education; have a different outlook on the world; and have few or no connections in Russia. Having been democratically elected, these three base their legitimacy on a European-style people’s mandate.
Both Pashinyan and Sandu are making bids to emancipate their countries from their dependence on Russia and are turning to the EU and the United States for support. Despite many similarities in terms of size, income level, and democratic standards, Moldova is in a more advantageous position than Armenia in this regard thanks to its geographic location adjacent to the EU. In response, Russia uses a range of instruments, from intervening in domestic politics to threatening to raise the price of its gas exports.
In trying to tilt both Armenia and Moldova back toward Russia and away from the West, the Russian government faces a dilemma, however. As public opinion in both countries is increasingly negative toward Russia, punitive measures, such as restricting trade or raising Armenia’s gas price, risk further alienating the public and delivering a message of Russian power that may only play to the advantage of pro-Western politicians.
Georgia forms a strange hybrid case that belongs to neither of these two groups. The country is formally committed under its constitution to join the EU and NATO, and much of its professional elite is post-Soviet and Western educated. However, either from a fear of Russia or in collusion with it—or, perhaps, both—the governing Georgian Dream party has conspicuously failed to offer public support to Ukraine since 2022, and its political-business elite keeps many informal links with Russia. These maneuvers enabled the Georgian government to pull off the remarkable feat in 2023 of both moving closer to Russia and being granted candidate country status by the EU. In 2024, that balancing act was failing: by cracking down on dissent and pro-European protestors, the Georgian government seemed to prioritize the quiet approval of Russia over the objections of Western countries.
Multiple Neighborhoods
Geography is a crucial factor in the calculations of leaders who are recalibrating their relations with Russia. More than thirty years after the end of the Soviet Union, despite the continued assumptions of the Russian elite—and, occasionally, some Western headline writers who should know better—in labeling them “Russia’s backyard,” all of these countries can be said to live in multiple neighborhoods. History has returned over the last three decades, so that neighboring powers, such as China, Turkey, Romania, and Poland, are now as influential as, or sometimes more influential than, Russia.
In Central Asia, China is the other main actor. The countries in the region can hedge by building relations with Beijing, but Russia’s relationship with China is not necessarily adversarial. Experts on Central Asia caution against the notion that Beijing and Moscow are in conflict there. Alexander Gabuev and Temur Umarov have written that the two powers’ economic interests in the region are complementary and that “Moscow has come to view China’s gradually growing security presence not as a competitive challenge but as an opportunity for burden sharing.”58
In this context, the South Caucasus is once again what it has been for much of its history: a geopolitical crossroads where no one outside power has decisive influence. Throughout the region, Russia vies for influence with the EU, China, and Turkey. Moscow has acknowledged the emergence of Azerbaijan as the most powerful actor in the South Caucasus. Russia and Azerbaijan signed a partnership agreement in February 2022 shortly before the war in Ukraine began, but the accord is less significant to Baku than is Azerbaijan’s strong alliance with Turkey, which was confirmed in a treaty signed in 2021.
Russia now bids to be a less formal third member in this strong Azerbaijan-Turkey axis. Moscow and Ankara have a centuries-old history of contestation in the region, but they also have shared interests. With the South Caucasian trio, Russia, Turkey, and Iran have invested in a new regional 3+3 format, through which all three can pursue an agenda to limit Western influence in the region.59 Political scientist Seçkin Köstem has called their relationship “managed regional rivalry.”60
The EU is also a player in the neighborhood. In 2022–2023, Moldova, Ukraine, and Georgia were given an EU membership perspective through candidate country status, something that would have been almost unthinkable before the war in Ukraine. There is even talk of Armenia being given such a perspective. In 2023, the EU deployed its first ever civilian monitoring mission to Armenia, a country that is a former Russian military ally.
The EU is challenging Russian energy monopolies, too. The war in Ukraine has seen the coming of age of the EU’s Energy Community, an organization in force since 2006 in which Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine are members and Armenia is an observer. The community was founded with the explicit intention to gradually extend the body of EU law on energy, the environment, and climate to participating countries.61 In 2022, the EU had the instruments in place to help both Moldova and Ukraine begin fairly rapidly to shed their dependence on Russian gas. Armenia and Georgia are more vulnerable in this regard, with Armenia still depending on Russia for around 85 percent of its gas, which is shipped via Georgia.62
Contestation over energy and transportation routes between the EU and Russia has intensified in the countries in the South Caucasus and Central Asia. Kazakhstan is vulnerable to Russia in that its main oil export route, the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, which exports 79 percent of the country’s main asset—crude oil—runs through Russian territory, and Russia has demonstrated since 2022 that it is prepared to shut the pipeline down.63 Rerouting oil across the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan is expensive and logistically challenging.
Azerbaijan and Georgia are better positioned and have used the post-2022 international environment to benefit economically from both Russia and Europe. In 2023, Azerbaijan struck a deal with the European Commission to double its gas exports to the EU by 2030 as Baku sought to wean itself off its dependence on Russian gas. It was a pledge that energy experts subsequently described as very difficult to meet but that earned Aliyev the compliment from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen that Azerbaijan was a “crucial partner.”64
Simultaneously, Azerbaijan continued to work with Russia. In the winter of 2022–2023, Russian energy giant Gazprom sold gas to Azerbaijan to make up for shortfalls in Azerbaijani supply. In October 2023, Russian oil company Lukoil struck an agreement with Azerbaijan’s state oil and gas company, SOCAR, under which Lukoil lent the Azerbaijani firm $1.5 billion and pledged to supply SOCAR’s STAR oil refinery in Turkey with up to 200,000 barrels per day of Russian crude oil.65
Russia badly needs new transportation and connectivity routes. With Western trade links cut off, routes south into the South Caucasus, east into Central Asia, and onward to the Middle East and the rest of Asia have become much more important. Ruslan Davydov, the head of the Russian Customs Service, said in October 2023, “The main challenge for our customs service was to support the economy to withstand sanctions and facilitate a global pivot of our external trade from the west to the east and south.”66
Meanwhile, the Georgian government has exploited this situation to renew flights to and increase trade with Russia—to the frustration of Georgia’s Western partners. And rail traffic through Azerbaijan has increased such that in March 2024, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said that volumes through the Russia-Azerbaijan border crossing had increased fivefold.67 These examples are part of a wider picture in which Russia’s southern and eastern post-Soviet neighbors are benefiting from doing business with both Russia and the West.
A Wartime Economy Brings Neighbors Closer
Conflict in Ukraine has reshaped the economic relationships between Russia and its neighbors to their advantage. While frontline states have reasons to be more fearful of Russia in 2024 than before, they are also benefiting economically from a situation in which they are exempt from Western sanctions and have therefore become key states for trade and reexport to Russia.
In this context, the EAEU has been given an unexpected new lease on life. Russia’s geopolitical and business interests converged in the creation of an economic union in which the country was responsible for 87 percent of the organization’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2019 and which precluded the other member states—Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan—from signing free-trade agreements with other trading blocs, such as the EU.68 In return, the other states received low trade tariffs, free movement of labor, and other economic inducements, including a low gas price from Moscow.
Armenia was both a key battleground and an example to others in Russia’s efforts to create a privileged economic space in the near abroad. In the 2000s, Russia had acquired almost all of Armenia’s main economic resources. Despite this, in 2013, then Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan was on the verge of signing an Association Agreement with the EU that included a large trade component, a Deep and Comprehensive Free-Trade Area. This accord would inevitably have reduced Russia’s grip on the Armenian economy. Then, two years of work with the EU were abruptly abandoned as Sargsyan announced that he would join Russia’s EAEU instead. Sargsyan barely hid the fact that he did so under coercion from Moscow, saying that Armenia’s core security interests were at stake.69
A much bigger prize eluded Russia in 2013, however, in Ukraine. Then Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych was also negotiating an EU Association Agreement. But unlike in Armenia, his decision to backtrack from the agreement triggered popular protests, which became known as the Euromaidan and eventually led to his downfall. At the time, Putin cited Ukraine’s potential NATO membership as a reason for threatening the country and seizing Crimea. In fact, NATO membership for Ukraine was not an imminent prospect. The huge economic impact of the conflict that followed—the billions of dollars of missed opportunities that Russian businesses suffered in Ukraine when the country failed to join the EAEU in 2013—is often overlooked.70
Immediately after Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the EAEU looked unfit for purpose. In March, Russia unilaterally announced a ban on exports of grain and sugar to other EAEU member states—a drastic measure that it later softened.71 Subsequently, the picture changed as Russia looked to neighboring countries to help it overcome its new isolation. The EAEU as well as the CIS were refashioned as more informal deal-making organizations. A May 2023 leaders’ meeting in Moscow drew a strong turnout, being attended not only by the EAEU leaders but also by the president of Azerbaijan in person and the presidents of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan online.72
The countries in the South Caucasus and Central Asia have all enjoyed an economic boom as a result of the war in Ukraine. Reexports of goods to Russia, including dual-use goods that could be adapted for military purposes, have burgeoned. For example, Kyrgyzstan has reported a massive increase in car imports from various countries since 2022, including a 5,500 percent increase in imports of German cars and vehicle parts—presumably for reexport to Russia.73 The three countries in the South Caucasus have all registered similar dramatic rises in imports of European cars.74
As a result, Armenia’s GDP in 2024 is close to double what it was in 2021, having risen from $13.8 billion to $26.9 billion according to calculations by the International Monetary Fund.75 Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan have all recorded healthy levels of economic growth. South Caucasian and Central Asian countries have also benefited economically from an influx of educated Russians, many of them relocating their businesses. Armenia and Kazakhstan were especially attractive destinations as migrants could maintain their bank cards and transactions with Russia under EAEU rules. In parallel, Central Asian migrant workers were needed more than ever in Russia to fill the jobs left by departing Russians and young men called up into the army.
These increased business links, many of which exploit loopholes or gaps in Western sanctions policies, have empowered middlemen, who are often ethnic nationals of South Caucasian or Central Asian countries and resident in Russia. One of them is former Georgian general prosecutor Otar Partskhaladze, who was sanctioned by the United States in September 2023 along with business associates who are close to both Russian elite circles and the Georgian Dream government.76 Another such middleman is Armenian-Russian tycoon Samvel Karapetyan, whose Tashir Group works closely with Gazprom and owns major energy assets in Armenia.77
The group of elite Russian-Azerbaijanis who act as trusted intermediaries between Moscow and Baku is even more numerous. One prominent figure is God Nisanov, most famous for owning the Ukraine Hotel and the massive Food City produce markets. He is said to be friends with Russian foreign intelligence chief Sergei Naryshkin and close to Aliyev and his family.78
Western sanctions on Russian oil and gas have also been a boon for so-called petro-elites, who work between Russia, Central Asia, and Azerbaijan. Even before the war in Ukraine, Russia expert Morena Skalamera wrote that there was a shared interest among the Eurasian petro-economies in cooperating to perpetuate revenues for the elites and resist a shift away from fossil fuels: “In Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, most natural resources and heavy industries remain controlled by an oligarchy of neftyaniki [oilmen] that still wields strong political influence and retains close business ties with Russian elites and insiders.”79
For example, Uzbekistan is set to increase its imports of Russian gas, and cooperation with Russian energy companies has intensified.80 In Kazakhstan, Moscow’s relations with the regime and family of former president Nursultan Nazarbayev were close until they fell out of favor in 2022. Under the Tokayev administration, Kazakh-Russian “energy interdependence is growing,” wrote political risk expert Kate Mallinson, while his government has struck several deals with Russia for uranium and coal.81
Azerbaijan’s petro-elite works more closely with Western companies but still keeps many connections with Russia. Senior Azerbaijani oil and gas managers who are Russian citizens include Gazprom’s Famil Sadygov and Lukoil’s Vagit Alekperov. According to a Wall Street Journal investigation, after Western companies withdrew from Russia following its invasion of Ukraine, Russian oil company Rosneft’s oil trade was taken over by a group of Russian Azerbaijanis operating out of Dubai and Hong Kong.82 Given that petro-elites are close to or indistinguishable from political elites, it is likely that most or all of these business deals were negotiated at the highest level.
The increased economic cooperation between Russia and its neighbors is lucrative—but also fragile and contingent on international political developments. New rounds of Western sanctions could threaten the livelihoods of Eurasian middlemen or shut down certain types of trade with Russia. A downturn in the Russian economy could very negatively affect migrant workers in Russia and Russian professional migrants in countries such as Armenia and Kazakhstan. In other words, a fresh crisis and a new round of bargaining between Moscow and its neighbors are possible at any moment.
Conclusion
Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 made all of its other neighbors feel deeply insecure. The decision to attack a sovereign state, accompanied by a menacing neo-imperialist discourse from Russian officials and commentators, sent the other post-Soviet states the message that they also belonged to a sphere of Russian influence and had no right to determine their own futures.
The war has simultaneously made Russia more threatening, weaker, and more unpredictable. In 2022, Russia intervened militarily in Ukraine yet also declined to do so in two disputes in Central Asia and the South Caucasus. Pressed by a host of day-to-day preoccupations, the Putin regime no longer pretends to have an overarching regional security strategy. Instead, with multilateral organizations such as the UN and the OSCE also weaker, the trend is toward an ad hoc regionalization of security arrangements as other regional powers, such as China, Iran, and Turkey, assert their interests and may seek to cut deals with Russia over the heads of the countries concerned. It is more a gangland environment than a post-Russia order.
The full-scale invasion of Ukraine marked the end of three decades of softer Russian post-Soviet integration projects, which were encapsulated in the term “near abroad.” One reason why Putin resorted to mass violence is because his integration projects to create a Russia-centered belt of states had not worked out as planned.
The invasion was not inevitable. Much of Russia’s elite is afflicted by an imperial mindset, but the country’s personalized autocracy is arguably more consequential. During Russia’s first two post-Soviet decades, other more conciliatory options on how to engage with its neighborhood had been part of the mainstream political discourse. Putin’s war was intended to legitimize his own autocratic rule by extinguishing alternative visions of a postimperial Russia, which would have promised more freedom not only for Russia’s neighbors but also for Russian citizens.
In a highly uncertain environment and a potential security vacuum, the other post-Soviet states continue to do political and economic deals with Russia. Economic cooperation between the South Caucasus and Central Asian states, on the one hand, and Moscow, on the other, has increased in the past two years, as these countries provide alternative trade routes for Russia, which suffers from a Western economic blockade. Their economies have all grown since 2022.
To use the language of political science, regime type matters. The one-party autocratic governments in Central Asia and Azerbaijan have adapted best to the volatile post-2022 situation. A long Soviet legacy is no less palpable there than in Russia. The leaders of these countries have made their republics bastions of sovereignty and are generally averse to power sharing not only within their societies but also with their regional neighbors.
These leaders have reached out to Western governments and received new attention from them. That attention is warranted. Yet, most of these leaders are cut from the same Soviet cloth as the Russian elite, and their regimes bear a strong resemblance to Putin’s. They have studied or worked in Russia and speak the same language as the Putin regime, both literally and figuratively. Their petro-elites continue to do oil and gas deals with Russian companies. While also reaching out to Western powers and China, these leaders let the Putin regime understand that they will not cross Russian redlines by embracing democracy or seeking EU or NATO membership. In this respect, the leaders are often out of step with their societies, where the mood of alienation from Russia is stronger.
With these one-party states, European actors should pursue policies that reinforce their sovereignty and enable them to decrease their dependence on Russia. But Europeans should be careful in the process not to strengthen undemocratic elites who still work closely with Moscow and are instrumentalizing Russia’s war in Ukraine to their advantage.
Three other countries—Armenia, Georgia, and Moldova—have many differences but share the fact that they are democracies and more vulnerable to Russia. There, Western actors have more opportunities to provide direct security assistance, work with societies, and strengthen democratic institutions. But this is likely to be successful only if there is seen to be evidence of a serious long-term commitment. EU accession promises this, but the way ahead is not so clear to many citizens. These three countries also have divided societies, and it is important to engage with those constituencies that, for economic, cultural, or religious reasons, are still linked to Russia.
For the foreseeable future, Russia’s neighbors can only expect the unexpected. This is especially true as all consequential decisions are being made by one man—Putin—and any checks and balances have been removed. If the Russian leader decides to take action in the near abroad, however unwise other state actors in Russia deem it to be, there is very little to stop him. Dealing with the threats and uncertainties that the new Russia presents requires from others both short-term agility and a long-term investment of resources.
This working paper is published jointly by Carnegie Europe and the Institute of Human Sciences (IWM), Vienna, as a result of the Europe’s Futures Fellowship awarded by IWM and ERSTE Foundation to the author. He is grateful to Kirill Rogov, Eugene Rumer, and Maxim Samorukov for their helpful comments and to Aida Zharmukhametova for research assistance.
Notes
1 Sloth Agency, “Шоколад Казахстанский Вкус свободы - реклама юмор” [Kazakhstani Chocolate—Taste of Freedom—Advertising Humor], YouTube, November 23, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uW5V2dqR40.
2 “New Poll: Moldovans Want Government to Prioritize Economy, Public Service Delivery,” International Republican Institute, July 25, 2019, https://www.iri.org/resources/new-poll-moldovans-want-government-to-prioritize-economy-public-service-delivery/; and “IRI Moldova Poll Finds Continued Support for EU, Optimism in the Country’s Direction, Rising Approval of President Sandu,” International Republican Institute, September 8, 2023, https://www.iri.org/news/iri-moldova-poll-finds-continued-support-for-eu-optimism-in-the-countrys-direction-rising-approval-of-president-sandu/.
3 “Public Opinion Survey: Residents of Armenia | December 2023,” International Republican Institute, March 11, 2024, https://www.iri.org/resources/public-opinion-survey-residents-of-armenia-december-2023/.
4 “NDI Poll: Georgian Citizens Remain Committed to EU Membership; Nation United in Its Dreams and Shared Challenges,” National Democratic Institute, December 11, 2023, https://www.ndi.org/publications/ndi-poll-georgian-citizens-remain-committed-eu-membership-nation-united-its-dreams-and.
5 “Caucasus Barometer 2021 Georgia,” Caucasus Research Resource Center Georgia, https://caucasusbarometer.org/en/cb2021ge/KNOWRUS/; and “Caucasus Barometer 2021 Armenia,” Caucasus Research Resource Center Georgia, https://caucasusbarometer.org/en/cb2021am/KNOWRUS/.
6 “Caucasus Barometer 2013 Azerbaijan,” Caucasus Research Resource Center Georgia, https://caucasusbarometer.org/en/cb2013az/KNOWRUS/.
7 “Nikol Pashinyan and Irakli Kobakhidze Discuss a Number of Issues Related to Armenia-Georgia Multi-sectoral Cooperation,” Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia, March 25, 2024, https://www.primeminister.am/en/press-release/item/2024/03/25/Nikol-Pashinyan-Prime-Minister-of-Georgia/.
8 AFP, “Armenia Suspends License of Russian Broadcaster Sputnik,” Moscow Times, December 21, 2023, https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/12/21/armenia-suspends-license-of-russian-broadcaster-sputnik-a83513.
9 “In the Republic of Moldova, Russia Still Feels at ‘Home,’” WatchDog.MD, September 8, 2023, https://watchdog.md/en/studies/207903/in-republica-moldova-rusia-se-simte-inca-acasa/.
10 “Countries and Territories,” Freedom House, https://freedomhouse.org/countries/nations-transit/scores.
11 “The Concept of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, March 31, 2023, https://mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/fundamental_documents/1860586/.
12 Rilka Dragneva and Kataryna Wolczuk, “The Eurasian Economic Union: Deals, Rules and the Exercise of Power,” Chatham House, May 2017, https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/publications/research/2017-05-02-eurasian-economic-union-dragneva-wolczuk.pdf.
13 JAMnews, “‘Russia would not have had any problems with Armenia if we had not halted (military actions) in 2008 in Georgia,’” X, February 27, 2024, https://twitter.com/JAMnewsCaucasus/status/1762569517442519043.
14 Danil Usmanov, “Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan: The Terror and Death of a Fruitless Border Conflict,” Eurasianet, September, 18, 2022, https://eurasianet.org/kyrgyzstan-tajikistan-the-terror-and-death-of-a-fruitless-border-conflict.
15 Andrew Osborn, “Putin Ally Says ‘Ukraine Is Russia’ and Historical Territory Needs to ‘Come Home,’” Reuters, March 4, 2024, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-ally-says-ukraine-is-definitely-russia-rules-out-talks-with-zelenskiy-2024-03-04/.
16 Valerie Kivelson and Ronald Suny, Russia’s Empires (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017); and Dominic Lieven, Empire: The Russian Empire and Its Rivals(London: John Murray, 2000).
17 Leonid Radzikhovsky, “Распад СССР стал условием выживания России” [The Breakup of the USSR Was the Condition for Russia’s Survival], Rossiiskaya Gazeta, June 10, 2013, https://rg.ru/2013/06/11/radzohovski.html.
18 Thomas de Waal, “Time to Get Serious About Moldova,” Carnegie Europe, May 11, 2023, https://carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/89732
19 De Waal, “Time to Get Serious About Moldova.”
20 Arshan Barzani, “Who Is Running Georgia?,” Politico, April 26, 2023, https://www.politico.eu/article/who-is-running-georgia-tbilisi-ukraine-russia-war-vladimir-putin-sanctions-georgian-dream/.
21 “Южная Осетия для России - чемодан без ручки” [South Ossetia for Russia—a Suitcase Without a Handle], BBC Russian, March 3, 2009, http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/russian/russia/newsid_7920000/7920287.stm.
22 Neli Esipova and Julie Ray, “Former Soviet Countries See More Harm From Breakup,” Gallup, December 19, 2013, https://news.gallup.com/poll/166538/former-soviet-countries-harm-breakup.aspx.
23 Dmitri Trenin, The End of Eurasia: Russia on the Border Between Geopolitics and Globalization (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2002), 180, https://carnegieendowment.org/2002/02/13/end-of-eurasia-russia-on-border-between-geopolitics-and-globalization-pub-8941.
24 Gerard Toal, Near Abroad: Putin, the West, and the Contest Over Ukraine and the Caucasus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 3.
25 Trenin, The End of Eurasia, 100–101.
26 According to the poll, the largest communities of people who still identified as Russian were in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Moldova. Pro-Russia constituencies have not disappeared; they are both smaller and more ready to receive support from Moscow, increasing the chance of polarization in several countries. Evgenia Dubrovina, “Опрос: русскоговорящие в ближнем зарубежье редко чувствуют себя «чужими»” [Poll: Russian Speakers in Neighboring Countries Rarely Feel Like “Strangers”], Vedomosti, July 3, 2023, https://www.vedomosti.ru/society/articles/2023/07/03/983534-russkogovoryaschie-chuvstvuyut-sebya.
27 Jeremy Smith, Red Nations: The Nationalities Experiences In and After the USSR (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), Preface.
28 Marlene Laruelle, Ivan Grek, and Sergey Davydov, “Culturalizing the Nation: A Quantitative Approach to the Russkii/Rossiiskii Semantic Space in Russia’s Political Discourse,” Demokratizatsiya 31, no. 1 (2023): 3–28, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/880816.
29 Yuri Slezkine, “The USSR as a Communal Apartment, or How a Socialist State Promoted Ethnic Particularism,” Slavic Review 53, no. 2 (1994): 414–452, https://doi.org/10.2307/2501300.
30 Jeffrey Mankoff, Empires of Eurasia: How Imperial Legacies Shape International Security (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2022), 24.
31 Slezkine, “The USSR as a Communal Apartment.”
32 On the continuity of Soviet and post-Soviet elites see Georgi Derluguian, Bourdieu’s Secret Admirer in the Caucasus (London, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005).
33 “Future of Georgia: Survey Report,” Caucasus Research Resource Center Georgia, 2021, https://crrc.ge/uploads/tinymce/documents/Future%20of%20Georgia/Final%20FoG_Eng_08_04_2021.pdf.
34 Darina Solod, “A Guide to the Violent Unrest in Uzbekistan’s Karakalpakstan Region,” openDemocracy, August 4, 2022, https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/protests-karakalpakstan-uzbekistan-former-soviet/.
35 Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Rebuilding Russia: Reflections and Tentative Proposals (London: The Harvill Press, 1991). Russian original available at http://www.solzhenitsyn.ru/proizvedeniya/publizistika/stati_i_rechi/v_izgnanii/kak_nam_obustroit_rossiyu.pdf.
36 Anatoly Chubais, “Миссия России в ХХI веке” [Russia’s Mission in the Twenty-First Century], Nezavisimaya Gazeta, October 1, 2003, https://www.ng.ru/ideas/2003-10-01/1_mission.html.
37 James Sherr, “Russia: Managing Contradictions,” in America and a Changed World: A Question of Leadership, ed. Robin Niblett (Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/Research/Americas/us0510_sherr.pdf.
38 “Примаков: Я против признания независимости Абхазии и Южной Осетии” [Primakov: I Am Against Recognizing the Independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia], Rosbalt, April 17, 2008, https://www.rosbalt.ru/news/2008-04-17/primakov-ya-protiv-priznaniya-nezavisimosti-abhazii-i-yuzhnoy-osetii-3545106.
39 Konstantin Kosachev, Политик, дипломат, ученый: Евгений Примаков. Сборник воспоминаний [Politician, Diplomat, Scholar: Yevgeny Primakov. A Collection of Reminiscences] (Moscow: West Consulting, 2019), 224.
40 Yevgeny Primakov, Russian Crossroads: Towards the New Millennium (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014), 394.
41 “Что такое национализм?” [What Is Nationalism?], Colta, September 30, 2015, https://www.colta.ru/articles/specials/8715-chto-takoe-natsionalizm.
42 Navalny, “Утром потратил целый час на то, что полностью посмотрел прямую трансляцию с Совбеза ООН” [In the morning I spent a whole hour watching the entire live broadcast from the UN Security Council], LiveJournal, August 8, 2008, https://navalny.livejournal.com/274456.html; and Alexey Navalny, “The combination of aggressive warfare, corruption, inept generals, weak economy, and heroism and high motivation of the defending forces can only result in defeat,” X, February 20, 2023, https://twitter.com/navalny/status/1627632111220817921?s=61&t=VHziTUIJcWyZNsvUQ_4efQ.
43 ABC News, “Russian Pres. Putin critic Alexey Navalny tells ABC News,” Facebook, March 17, 2018, https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10157037177358812.
44 Maria Snegovaya, Michael Kimmage, and Jade McGlynn, “Putin the Ideologue,” Foreign Affairs, November 16, 2023, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russian-federation/putin-ideologue.
45 “Annual Address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation,” President of Russia, April 25, 2005, http://www.en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/22931.
46 “Meeting With Members of the Valdai International Discussion Club,” President of Russia, September 14, 2007, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/24537.
47 “Meeting With Members,” President of Russia.
48 Fiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy, <>Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2015), 393.
49 Paul Reynolds, “New Russian World Order: The Five Principles,” BBC News, September 1, 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7591610.stm.
50 Samuel Greene and Graeme Robertson, “The Co-Construction of Putin’s Power: Implications for Western Policymakers,” Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, September 2020, https://fsi-live.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/memo_3_-_greene_rob.pdf.
51 Kirill Rogov and Maxim Ananyev, “Public Opinion and Russian Politics,” in The New Autocracy: Information, Politics, and Policy in Putin’s Russia, ed. Daniel Treisman (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2018), 191–216, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7864/j.ctt1zkjzsh.11.
52 “Какой должна быть Россия в представлении Россиян?” [What Should Russia Be Like in the Minds of Russians?], Levada Center, September 10, 2021, https://www.levada.ru/2021/09/10/kakoj-dolzhna-byt-rossiya-v-predstavlenii-rossiyan/.
53 Heydar Isayev, “War in Ukraine Puts Spotlight on Russian Language in Azerbaijan,” Eurasianet, April 13, 2022, https://eurasianet.org/war-in-ukraine-puts-spotlight-on-russian-language-in-azerbaijan.
54 Justin Burke, “Kazakh President Uses Language to Deliver a Surprising Message to Russia,” Eurasianet, November 10, 2023, https://eurasianet.org/kazakh-president-uses-language-to-deliver-a-surprising-message-to-russia.
55 “Alexei Overchuk: The International Organisation for the Russian Language Is an Effective Tool to Support, Popularise and Spread Our Language Across the World,” Russian Government, October 13, 2023, http://government.ru/en/news/49798/.
56 “EU Bid: Kobakhidze Slams Open Society Georgia Foundation Leadership,” Civil Georgia, May 31, 2022, https://civil.ge/archives/493108; and “Политолог о работе фонда Сороса в Центральной Азии и тщетных попытках "цветных революций"” [A Political Scientist on the Work of the Soros Foundation in Central Asia and the Futile Attempts at “Color Revolutions”], Sputnik, August 24, 2023, https://sputnik-georgia.ru/20230824/politolog-o-rabote-fonda-sorosa-v-tsentralnoy-azii-i-tschetnykh-popytkakh-tsvetnykh-revolyutsiy-281604661.html.
57 It is interesting to note that this speech was published in full on the Azerbaijani president’s website in its original Azeri version and in a Russian translation but only partly in English, without the Soros references: “İlham Əliyev Azərbaycan Gəncləri Gününün 25 illiyinə həsr olunmuş Gənclər Forumunda iştirak edib” [Ilham Aliyev Participated in the Youth Forum Dedicated to the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of Azerbaijan Youth Day], President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, February 2, 2022, https://president.az/az/articles/view/55348; and “Ilham Aliyev Attended Youth Forum on 25th Anniversary of Day of Azerbaijani Youth,” President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, February 2, 2022, https://president.az/en/articles/view/55348.
58 Temur Umarov and Alexander Gabuev, “Is Russia Losing Its Grip on Central Asia?,” Foreign Affairs, June 30, 2023, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/russia-losing-its-grip-central-asia.
59 Thomas de Waal, “Armenia’s Existential Moment,” Engelsberg Ideas, December 5, 2023, https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/armenias-existential-moment/.
60 Seçkin Köstem, “Managed Regional Rivalry Between Russia and Turkey After the Annexation of Crimea,” Europe-Asia Studies 74, no. 9 (2022): 1657–1675, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09668136.2022.2134308.
61 “Energy Community: Creating an Integrated Pan-European Energy Market,” European Parliament, February 9, 2024, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document/EPRS_BRI(2024)757637.
62 Figure from 2022. “Armenia 2022: Energy Policy Review,” International Energy Agency, March 2022, 12, https://www.iea.org/reports/armenia-2022.
63 Kate Mallinson, “Russia’s Influence in Kazakhstan Is Increasing Despite the War in Ukraine,” Chatham House, February 29, 2024, https://www.chathamhouse.org/2024/02/russias-influence-kazakhstan-increasing-despite-war-ukraine.
64 “Azerbaijan’s Gas Exports to the EU Face Challenges,” Economist Intelligence Unit, July 10, 2023, https://www.eiu.com/n/azerbaijans-gas-exports-to-the-eu-face-challenges/; and “Statement by President von der Leyen With Azerbaijani President Aliyev,” European Commission, July 18, 2022, https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/es/statement_22_4583.
65 David O’Byrne, “Azerbaijan’s SOCAR in Sweetheart Oil Deal With Russia’s Lukoil,” Eurasianet, October 16, 2023, https://eurasianet.org/azerbaijans-socar-in-sweetheart-oil-deal-with-russias-lukoil.
66 Ruslan Davydov, “Глава ФТС — о том, как «необъявленная война» изменила работу таможни” [The Head of the Federal Customs Service Talks About How the “Undeclared War” Changed the Work of Customs], RBC, October 25, 2023, https://www.rbc.ru/opinions/economics/25/10/2023/6537845e9a7947415caa4074?from=column_1.
67“О качественно новом уровне российско-азербайджанских отношений шла на встрече Михаила Мишутина с Ильхамом Алиевым” [A Qualitatively New Level of Russian-Azerbaijani Relations Was Discussed at the Meeting Between Mikhail Mishutin and Ilham Aliyev], Channel One, March 6, 2024, https://www.1tv.ru/news/2024-03-06/472195-o_kachestvenno_novom_urovne_rossiysko_azerbaydzhanskih_otnosheniy_shla_na_vstreche_mihaila_mishutina_s_ilhamom_alievym.
68 Kataryna Wolczuk, Rilka Dragneva, and Jon Wallace, “What Is the Eurasian Economic Union?,” Chatham House, July 15, 2022, https://www.chathamhouse.org/2022/07/what-eurasian-economic-union.
69 Thomas de Waal, “An Offer that Sargsyan Could Not Refuse,” Carnegie Moscow, September 4, 2013, https://carnegiemoscow.org/posts/2013/09/an-offer-sargsyan-could-not-refuse?lang=en¢er=russia-eurasia.
70 Georg Zachmann, Marek Dabrowski, and Marta Domínguez-Jiménez, “Ukraine: Trade Reorientation From Russia to the EU,”Bruegel, July, 13, 2020, https://www.bruegel.org/blog-post/ukraine-trade-reorientation-russia-eu.
71 Almaz Kumenov, “Central Asia Frets as Russia Suspends Grain, Sugar Exports,” Eurasianet, March 11, 2022, https://eurasianet.org/central-asia-frets-as-russia-suspends-grain-sugar-exports.
72 Dana Omirgazy, “President Tokayev Urges EAEU Member States to Unlock Union’s Economic Potential,” Astana Times, May 29, 2023, https://astanatimes.com/2023/05/president-tokayev-urges-eaeu-member-states-to-unlock-unions-economic-potential/.
73 Robin Brooks, “German exports of motor vehicles and parts (blue) to Kyrgyzstan are up 5500% since Russia invaded Ukraine,” X, November 26, 2023, https://twitter.com/robin_j_brooks/status/1728767789065023758.
74 “Armenian Car Re-exports Hit New Record in 2023,” Radio Azatutyun, January 23, 2024, https://www.azatutyun.am/a/32788588.html; and Ed Conway, “Car Industry Insists 2,000% Increase in Sales to Azerbaijan Has Nothing to Do With Russia,” Sky News, March 18, 2024, https://news.sky.com/story/car-industry-insists-2-000-increase-in-sales-to-azerbaijan-has-nothing-to-with-russia-13097685.
75 “World Economic Outlook Database,” International Monetary Fund, October 2023, https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/weo-database/2023/October/weo-report?c=911,&s=NGDP_RPCH,NGDPD,PPPGDP,NGDPDPC,PPPPC,PCPIPCH,LUR,LP,&sy=2018&ey=2024&ssm=0&scsm=1&scc=0&ssd=1&ssc=0&sic=0&sort=country&ds=.&br=1.
76 “U.S. Sanctions | Who is Otar Partskhaladze?,” Civil Georgia, September 18, 2023, https://civil.ge/archives/559664.
77 “Profile: Samvel Karapetyan,” Forbes, https://www.forbes.com/profile/samvel-karapetyan/?sh=4ed1f33a6e19.
78 Maria Zholoba, “God Azerbaidzhana v Rossii” [The Year of Azerbaijan in Russia], Proekt, December 16, 2020, https://www.proekt.media/portrait/god-nisanov/.
79 Morena Skalamera, “‘Steppe-ing’ out of Russia’s Shadow: Russia’s Changing ‘Energy Power’ in Post-Soviet Eurasia,” Europe-Asia Studies 74, no. 9 (2022): 1640–1656, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09668136.2022.2126440.
80 “Узбекистан планирует направить $500 млн на увеличение импорта газа из России” [Uzbekistan Plans to Allocate $500 Million to Increase Gas Imports From Russia], Gazeta.uz, February 20, 2024, https://www.gazeta.uz/ru/2024/02/20/gas/; and “Озодлик суриштируви: Ўзбекларни газсиз қолдирган махфий келишувлар” [The Freedom Inquiry: The Secret Deals That Left Uzbeks Without Gas], Ozodlik Radiosi, February 9, 2023, https://www.ozodlik.org/a/ozodlik-surishtiruvi-gaz-putin-eriell-mirziyoyev-fozilov-timchenko/32261934.html.
81 Mallinson, “Russia’s Influence.”
82 Joe Wallace, Anna Hirtenstein, and Costas Paris, “The Secret Oil-Trading Ring That Funds Russia’s War,” Wall Street Journal, February 19, 2024, https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/russia-oil-trading-secret-network-sanctions-fc3981b7.
