Russia
The Black Sea drone war reaches Baku through the crew of a Turkish salvage tug
Two Azerbaijani sailors died on Wednesday when drones hit the tug Tedy twice off Odesa during a salvage operation for an Istanbul company, on a passage the Turkish trade press reports as bound for ConstanΘa. On Thursday Russia's defence ministry reported a strike on βa tug escortingβ two cargo ships bound for Odesa, Baku named its dead and told its citizens to keep away from war zones, and Ankara, which proposed a shipping-security mechanism 8 days ago, had added nothing to it by evening. The cost of the middle position in this war has moved from hulls to crews.
Kazakhstan's energy ministry says CPC loading stopped on 2 buoys after Tuesday's drone incident and resumed after checks
Loading at the Caspian Pipeline Consortium's marine terminal near Novorossiysk was halted on single-point moorings 2 and 3 after βan incident with an unmanned aerial vehicleβ close to the terminal on 8 September and resumed in normal mode once the cargo systems and the tankers had been inspected, Kazakhstan's Ministry of Energy said on Wednesday. No restrictions were placed on accepting oil from Kazakh shippers, it said. The consortium's own channel has carried no operational statement since 30 July.
Russia's defence minister tells Dushanbe the Afghan border gets special attention and its drone units get Russian help
Andrei Belousov used a reception for the 35th anniversary of Tajikistan's independence on Tuesday evening to say that Moscow pays special attention to strengthening the Tajik-Afghan border and takes an active part in forming the republic's aviation, unmanned-systems and special-purpose units, TASS and Izvestia reported. A week after Putin met Rahmon in Bishkek, the visit put the Russian defence minister in Dushanbe on the eve of the holiday.
Drones kill 4 in Novorossiysk and set a fuel-oil terminal alight in the port that ships Kazakhstan's oil
An overnight drone attack on Novorossiysk killed four people, a child among them, and injured 29, the governor of Krasnodar Krai said on Wednesday morning. Ukrainian monitoring channels and satellite heat data placed a fire at the fuel-oil terminal inside the commercial port. The city is the sea end of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, the route for more than 80% of Kazakhstan's oil exports, and no statement on loading had appeared on the consortium's channel by evening; the desk did not reach Transneft.
Yerevan lodges a complaint against Russia's produce bans through the EAEU as Pashinyan leaves for Paris
Armenia has filed a complaint against the restrictions Russia has kept on Armenian goods since May, deputy economy minister Tigran Gasparyan told a briefing on Tuesday, and expects them lifted βwith the help of the mechanisms that operate within the EAEUβ. On Wednesday morning Armenpress reported the prime minister leaving for a working visit to Paris. The Moscow visit the Kremlin announced on Monday has drawn no word from Yerevan's channels that the desk could find.
Serbia's president says Uzbekistan's second nuclear plant is being built with China, and Tashkent has named no partner
Aleksandar VuΔiΔ told the Uzbek-Serbian business forum in Belgrade on Tuesday that Shavkat Mirziyoyev had told him that morning, one to one, that one nuclear plant is being built with the Russians and another with the Chinese, and that this is not enough for him. Uzbekistan's own record holds one plant, at Jizzakh with Rosatom, and a promise made on 17 August to prepare a second, partner unnamed. If the host heard right, Tashkent is copying the formula Astana chose last year: Rosatom for the first plant, CNNC for the second, and the price as the lever between them.
On the map in your pocket, Russia is 10 Central Asias. On the ground it is 4.3
The UN General Assembly voted on Friday to push the world's maps away from Mercator, for Africa's sake. CAW ran the same arithmetic across Eurasia: the standard web map hands Russia a latitude premium that doubles its visual weight against Central Asia, and hands Central Asia a premium of its own against every neighbour to its south and east. Correcting the map takes the northern half of that bargain away.
Mongolia's premier hears Moscow's fuel pledge in Vladivostok while 165 rural stations run below normal
Nyam-Osoryn Uchral met Russia's energy minister Sergei Tsivilev at the Eastern Economic Forum and heard that Russia keeps Mongolia's supply stable under their intergovernmental agreements despite its export restrictions, Montsame reported on Thursday. At home, the ministry's own count says 200 of 365 rural stations were working normally on 30 August.
Bishkek's petrol rose 1.5% in the first month behind the dollar wall
The statistics committee's August print shows AI-92 up 1.46% on July and diesel down 0.17%, in the month the government's fuel subsidy, by its own retroactive clause, began running against a $960 reference. The wall is real, it is paid to importers in arrears, and the pump has not felt it.
Diesel in Dushanbe is up 50% since June, and no budget stands between the pump and the border
Asia-Plus priced diesel in the Tajik capital at about 16.50 somoni a litre on 31 August, 5.50 somoni above early June. Bishkek fixes a dollar reference and runs a compensation formula from its budget; Ulaanbaatar holds a regulated pump price and manages the shortfall by the monthly book. Dushanbe does neither, so the whole adjustment lands on the pump.
The remittance machine gets a new price list
From 1 September a migrant in Moscow carries a phone that reports where he sleeps, pays 10,000 roubles a month for the right to work, and sends money home over rails the EU has started to sanction. The money keeps coming. What changed is what each dollar of it now costs.
Pashinyan drops the referendum, and Putin offers to leave Gyumri
Four days after Lavrov told Armenia to choose between the EU and the EAEU by referendum, Pashinyan told Putin in Bishkek there will be no referendum and no membership decision yet. Putin answered at his press conference in Bishkek that the Gyumri base stays only if Armenians want it, and invited Pashinyan to Moscow to go through the file point by point. The ultimatum has become a negotiation with a venue.
A pardoned Russian's ticket out of Georgia expires in a migration cell
Denis Kulanin, released from a protest-case sentence by presidential pardon on 28 August, spent 1 September in Tbilisi's temporary migrant detention center while a ticket to Yerevan bought for him went unused. The migration service wants a court-ordered deportation, and voluntary exit is blocked until a judge rules.
The SCO leaves Bishkek with 28 documents and two new centers
The 25th anniversary summit closed on 1 September with 28 signed texts, the Bishkek Declaration at the top: charter amendments that add two new bodies to the organization's structure, a roadmap for settling more trade in national currencies, and sectoral programs running to 2030.
Charter amendments top the SCO's anniversary pile in Bishkek
The organisation's heads of state met in Bishkek today over a Bishkek Declaration and more than 20 documents, charter amendments among them. The final texts were still unpublished as this edition went to print.
Russia keeps the diesel door shut, and the region's workarounds become the plan
The exemption that was to reopen Russia's diesel exports for producing refineries on 1 September was pushed back a month, 3 days before it started. The ban now runs to 30 September, and the region's importers know their main supplier's calendar is written one month at a time.
Moscow packs a referendum for Bishkek
The Kremlin has named the topic Vladimir Putin brings to Nikol Pashinyan in Bishkek: the choice it wants Armenia to put to a vote.
The summit begins at dinner, and the declaration can wait
Xi Jinping opened his state visit with a Sunday-night dinner, Narendra Modi landed with his Tashkent deals already signed, and Moscow published its agenda before reaching the hall. The heads of state sit on Tuesday; the week they are meant to crown is already running.
Lavrov answers the Kocharyan file with a referendum demand
Moscow's first comment above spokesperson level on Armenia's prosecuted ex-presidents arrived on Friday from Sergey Lavrov: the leadership in Yerevan is "guided by other tasks", the Eurasian membership on the table is worth $6 billion to $12 billion a year by his count, and the choice between Brussels and that union should go to a referendum without delay.