Russia
The drone war off Novorossiysk stops sparing crews
Since Saturday the approaches to Kazakhstan’s main export outlet have seen a cargo ship sunk and a Turkish-crewed freighter set ablaze, with three sailors gravely wounded. The terminal that carries more than 80% of Kazakh oil exports keeps loading at a third of its June intake, and July’s total has still not been published.
Pashinyan calls the union paralyzed
Armenia’s prime minister said on Thursday the Eurasian Economic Union is “de facto paralyzed”, his hardest wording since Russia began closing its market to Armenian goods in May. The union’s core promise, free movement of goods, is now disputed in public by one of its five members.
The fuel wall arrives, and the region answers with signatures
From Saturday, Russia’s gasoline export ban covers every exporter, and for August the diesel ban reaches even the producers. The decree leaves one door open, intergovernmental agreements, and the region spent the week queueing at it.
Moscow writes the fuel wall into a decree, and adds diesel
Russia’s government published the decree on 30 July: the gasoline export ban now runs from 1 August to 31 January 2027 and covers all exporters, and for the month of August diesel and marine fuel join it. Exports under intergovernmental agreements and humanitarian aid stay exempt.
The war on Russia’s warehouses arrives in Kazakhstan
Ukrainian drone strikes on Wildberries’ Russian warehouses have burned through the stock of Kazakh sellers who trade on the platform, and they are pushing Wildberries and Ozon to move warehousing south into Kazakhstan. The first move costs Kazakh small traders real money now; the second offers Kazakhstan a larger logistics business, though not a cheap one.
Moscow answers Yerevan through its foreign intelligence service
A day after Pashinyan asked Putin to lift the export restrictions, the Kremlin briefing dealt with an EU referendum and the Foreign Intelligence Service issued four statements on what leaving the Eurasian Economic Union would cost Armenia.
Pashinyan asks Putin to lift the export bans
Armenia’s prime minister raised the Russian restrictions with Putin by telephone on Monday, the day the dairy ban took effect, and told him they contradict both the bilateral treaty framework and the rules of the Eurasian Economic Union.
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.