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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.
Baku's fuel for Armenia nears 20,000 tonnes, and every wagon still goes through Georgia
Another 17 tank wagons of Azerbaijani diesel leave Baku's Bilajari yard for the Georgian border today. The running total the Baku press prints, near 15,000 tonnes of diesel and 5,000 of petrol, is small against Armenia's import book and large as a fact: the peace dividend is counted in wagons, and its only track runs through a third country.
Turkmenbashi's refinery burned 2 days after the president approved its repair
On the evening of Sunday 30 August, as the grid failed across 4 provinces, a unit at the Turkmenbashi refinery complex caught fire, Chronicles of Turkmenistan and turkmen.news report; Chronicles says it burned until 06:00. On Friday 28 August the cabinet readout on the state site had recorded the president approving capital repairs at the complex and 'everything necessary' being done for its power supply. By Wednesday the state site had said nothing about the fire or the blackout.
Mongolia's parliament returns on 7 September to rewrite this year's budget
The Speaker's Council called an extraordinary session of the State Great Khural for 7 to 14 September with one item on it: the amendment to the 2026 budget. The 2027 draft filed on 31 August, the one that suspends the spending rule, is not on the list.
Khachatryan gets 2 months in the jail that already holds Kocharyan
A Yerevan court ordered Gagik Khachatryan, the former finance minister and tax chief, held for 2 months, Sputnik Armenia and Kommersant reported on Wednesday morning. He goes to the Yerevan-Kentron detention centre, where Robert Kocharyan has been since last week, and the Human Rights Defender has opened an inquiry over a video of him that circulated online.
Kazakhstan brings Tleuberdi back from Vienna to run its foreign ministry
Mukhtar Tleuberdi, foreign minister from 2019 to 2023 and ambassador in Vienna since then, was appointed foreign minister again by decree on Wednesday. His is the first ministerial name of the government whose prime minister the Kurultai approved on Monday, on day 3 of the 10 days the law allows.
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.
Russian exchange petrol prints a record $86 under the price Bishkek fixed
AI-92 rose 4.36% to 75,477 roubles a tonne on the St Petersburg exchange on Tuesday, a level Kommersant reports as a record, while AI-95 and diesel fell. At the central bank's rate for the day that is about $874, within $90 of the $960 reference price Kyrgyzstan wrote into its subsidy decree last week.
Tbilisi asks a court to send its pardoned Russian back to Russia
The Migration Department filed a petition with Tbilisi City Court on Tuesday to expel Denis Kulanin to Russia, 2 days after the same court allowed him to leave for a third country. He is still in the migration centre with a ticket to Yerevan he cannot use.
A 4-hour blackout crosses four Turkmen provinces without an official word
Power failed across Ashgabat and the Ahal, Mary, Lebap and Balkan provinces at about 17:30 on Sunday, 30 August, and came back district by district over the next 7 hours. Three independent channels have described it since; the government has described nothing.
Ulaanbaatar's 2027 budget suspends its own spending rule for a year
The government sent parliament a 2027 budget on Monday with 41.3 trillion tugriks of revenue, 43.6 trillion of spending and a 2.3 trillion deficit, and asked to switch off the spending ceiling of the Fiscal Stability Law for the year. The exemption is justified by one-off money: state-company and Oyu Tolgoi dividends, domestic securities and last year's carry-overs.
Armenia's former tax chief is carried into court on a stretcher
Gagik Khachatryan, who ran the State Revenue Committee and then the finance ministry under Serzh Sargsyan, was taken from his home by Investigative Committee officers on Tuesday and delivered to court lying down. The detention is the milestone the new case opened on 29 August had been pointing to.
KazMunayGas settles its yuan bond today at less than half the coupon of the dollars it is buying back
Wednesday is the day the two money tracks touch: 3.5 billion yuan of new bonds settle at 2.3% and 2.8%, and the early deadline for tendering the company's 5.375% dollar notes closes at 17:00 New York time. The gap between the two coupons is the price Kazakhstan's oil company now puts on borrowing in Beijing's currency.
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.
Turkmenistan's exchange bulletin returns with a $7.3 million week
The state commodity exchange published a weekly trade report for the last week of August: 8 transactions, just over $7.27 million in foreign-currency sales and 8.2 million manat in domestic deals. Buyers came from the UAE, Turkey and Afghanistan.
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.
Dushanbe and Yerevan agree to convene their economic commission
Rahmon and Pashinyan used the SCO sidelines in Bishkek to line up the next session of the Tajik-Armenian intergovernmental commission on trade and economic cooperation, with business forums to follow. No documents were signed.
Armenia opens a new case against the man who ran its taxes and treasury
The Investigative Committee announced a new criminal case against Gagik Khachatryan, a former finance minister and former head of the State Revenue Committee, and said he would be detained. Prosecutors want 210 properties, stakes in 29 companies and 33 billion drams, about $85 million, forfeited.