Russia
Russia puts a price on the migrant family
The law Putin signed on 26 July ties the right to work to an income test measured per dependant, and charges a fixed monthly tax for each of them. Most of it starts on 1 January 2027.
Dushanbe says the Russian petrol ban should not reach it
Russia supplies 72.3% of the fuel Tajikistan burns. Its energy minister says the indicative balance has recently run into difficulty, and that the export ban extended last week should not in principle touch deliveries made under an intergovernmental agreement.
Tokayev asks for a freeze in Omsk, and Moscow answers in a day
Standing beside Putin, Kazakhstan’s president proposed freezing the war and returning to the Istanbul terms. The Kremlin called a freeze impossible the following morning.
Kyrgyzstan rewrites its fuel subsidy for a wider border
Moscow will hold its gasoline export ban to the end of the year. Bishkek is redrafting its subsidy rules so that supported fuel can arrive at any crossing point, from any third country.
Mongolia enters the EAEU tariff system
The interim trade agreement between the Eurasian Economic Union and Mongolia entered into force on 22 July. Duties are cut or removed on 367 tariff subheadings for each side, covering about 90% of the trade between them, for three years with automatic renewal. By the commission’s account, Mongolia has no comparable agreement with anyone else in the region.
Moscow starts Uzbekistan up the produce ladder
Rosselkhoznadzor will restrict imports from five Uzbek exporters from 23 July, citing phytosanitary violations: cabbage, onions, herbs, beetroot, tomatoes and grapes. In May the same regulator suspended ten Uzbek exporters. Armenia climbed this ladder rung by rung this spring, to a full ban in June.
EU sanctions reach the Russian cloud under Kazakh business
The European Union’s cyber-sanctions list of 13 July names the VK holding directly for the first time, along with the developer of the Max state messenger and VK’s chief executive. In Kazakhstan, VK Cloud told clients everything works as usual. That is true, and beside the point for every Kazakh company built on the platform.
Russia bans all diesel exports, and starts buying fuel itself
Resolution 854 of 8 July extends Russia’s diesel export ban to the producers themselves through 31 July, and deputy prime minister Alexander Novak says the country begins importing fuel this month. For the Central Asian states that run on Russian fuel, the quota survives on paper. The molecules now have a competing buyer.
Russia's new RuID app now stands between Central Asian migrants and the border
From 1 July, visa-free travelers to Russia, including millions of Kyrgyz, Uzbek and Tajik citizens, must file an electronic application through the Gosuslugi RuID app at least 72 hours before crossing and show a QR code at the border. The paperwork is digital; the hold is old.
Central Asia is going nuclear on Russian reactors and Russian credit
Uzbekistan has poured the first concrete for its nuclear plant. Kazakhstan has signed a $16.5 billion deal for its own. Both will be built by Rosatom, financed largely by Moscow, and fuelled on Russian terms. The region that talks about loosening its dependence on Russia is pouring four decades of it into the ground.
Mongolia’s two-neighbor squeeze, and the third neighbor that cannot reach it
China’s foreign minister spent three days in Ulaanbaatar this week promising railways and a shared future. The warmth is real, and so are its limits: nearly everything that should give Mongolia bargaining power, from gas transit to rare earths, is worth only what Beijing or Moscow agrees to pay for it.
Russia is squeezing Tajik migrants. Dushanbe is the quiet beneficiary
This week Russia made its citizenship 12 times more expensive and all but reserved the cheap path for men willing to fight its war. The West sees victims of Moscow. It keeps missing the government in Dushanbe that needs these men gone, and needs their money home.
Russia raises the price of a passport 12-fold, and waives it for soldiers
Russia’s parliament passed a law this week raising the fee for citizenship 12-fold and removing it for those who enlist to fight in Ukraine. The squeeze falls hardest on the millions of Central Asians who work there.
In one day, Kazakhstan courts Washington, Beijing and Moscow
On a single day this week Kazakhstan opened a US-led minerals dialogue, banked 6 billion dollars from China for a new city, and offered to pump more Russian gas to its neighbour. That is multi-vector foreign policy as a daily schedule.
Kazakhstan says it is ready to pump more Russian gas to Uzbekistan
Kazakhstan’s energy minister said on 10 June that the country is ready to carry more Russian gas to Uzbekistan, toward 11 billion cubic metres a year. The pipeline that once sent Central Asian gas north now runs the other way.
The scramble for the Caucasus, from Washington’s bill to a Chinese-built port
In one week Washington moved against Chinese and Russian sway in Georgia, the foreign ministers of Turkiye, Azerbaijan and Georgia signed a declaration in Istanbul, and a Chinese consortium kept its grip on Georgia’s flagship port. The Caucasus is being contested in real time.
Kazakhstan’s oil still rides a Russian route
Astana keeps adjusting its output numbers. It still ships most of its oil through a pipeline that crosses Russia to the Black Sea, and that route is now a target. The exposure is built into the map.
US House passes a bill on Chinese and Russian influence in Georgia
The US House passed the Countering China’s Control of the Caucasus Act on 8 June, ordering a classified report on Russian and Chinese intelligence activity in Georgia. It is the sharpest sign yet of Washington’s rift with Tbilisi.
Central Asia declared an AI year. The grid will decide how far it gets
The region is racing to build digital economies, AI centres and crypto hubs. All of it needs electricity Central Asia does not yet have, which is why the same governments are courting Korea, Rosatom and Beijing for new power.