Opinion
Positions and commentary
Kazakhstan’s reforms all point one way
On 12 June the party that ran Kazakhstan for a quarter of a century voted to dissolve itself into a party loyal to the sitting president. It was called renewal. It is the latest step in a steady concentration of power that the country’s reformist vocabulary keeps describing and never quite reverses.
The minerals man, the Shenzhen check, and the Russian gas tap
In one week Kazakhstan hosted an American official hunting for minerals, pocketed $6 billion from a Chinese roadshow, and offered to pump more Russian gas to its neighbor. The performance was flawless. The stage is getting smaller.
Armenia keeps its course, on less than half the vote
Civil Contract will govern alone for a third term on 49.81 percent of the vote, its lowest winning share since Nikol Pashinyan took power. The campaign that delivered it is the part the celebration skips.
Fifty companies
Kyrgyzstan shut down fifty companies on a list provided by Washington and London. The part of the story that got less attention: it was a list of fifty-one.
Forum week: Baku signed, St. Petersburg celebrated, Riga quietly worked
Three gatherings, one week, one pipeline. A tour of the parallel universes of Eurasian energy diplomacy.
Armenia on the eve: what the campaign actually settled
Tomorrow Armenians vote. The result looks predictable. The questions it raises are not.
The Tsar, the Steppe, and the Very Friendly Lunch
What Vladimir Putin’s second state visit to Kazakhstan really said — and what everyone agreed not to say out loud