Search
Kazakhstan’s Security Council approves a military reform that splits conscription in two
On 21 October Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s Security Council approved a military reform plan that moves conscripts to six months in training centres followed by six months in units, creates Drone Forces and a Commissioner for Servicemen, and sets the organisational steps for this year and what it calls the main conceptual measures for 2027. The plan’s text, troop numbers and budget are not published.
Two ex-GKNB officers held on corruption suspicion as Japarov replaces his frontier chiefs
A Bishkek court ordered a month in custody on Saturday for Kurbanbek Avazov, first deputy chairman of the State Committee for National Security until February, and Kanybek Dosmambetov, the former health minister who ran its Jalal-Abad directorate, both suspected of corruption under article 336. On Friday Sadyr Japarov replaced the heads of the customs and border services, and on Monday he said about 15 of their officers were in custody.
Kazakhstan arrests the navy commander it relieved three days ago over the Caspian deaths
Kanat Niyazbekov, the former commander of Kazakhstan’s navy, has been detained and placed under arrest with a court’s sanction on suspicion of a negligent attitude to service, in the investigation of the 14 deaths at the Caspian landing exercise of 24 September, the interior ministry said on Tuesday. Tokayev relieved him on 3 October. The defence minister’s reform plan is due on Wednesday.
After the Caspian drill deaths, Kazakhstan’s defence inspection opens 13 criminal cases
The commission Tokayev set up after 14 servicemen died in a Caspian landing exercise on 24 September has produced 13 criminal cases over possible theft of state property and abuse of office in its first stage, Akorda said on Monday, with 5 officials under arrest in the negligence case. On the same day the Higher Audit Chamber reported an audit of 50 defence sites, 48 of them military units.
After 14 Caspian deaths, Tokayev picks a chief of staff from his own guard
President Tokayev on Monday made Aitkurman Omarbekov, a major general of the State Guard Service, first deputy defence minister and chief of the General Staff, two days after relieving Kanysh Abubakirov from that post, deputy minister Almaz Dzhumakeev and navy commander Kanat Niyazbekov. Fourteen servicemen died in a Caspian exercise on 24 September, and a reform plan is due from the new defence minister on Wednesday.
Tokayev removes defence minister after the Caspian deaths and wants a reform plan in 10 days
Tokayev dismissed Dauren Kosanov on Sunday morning and gave the defence ministry to Major General Aidos Myrzakhmetov, until then the commander of the special operations forces. The president told the ministry’s leadership that the 14 men who died on 24 September had not been given life jackets, and gave it 10 days to draft a military reform plan.
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 Constanța. On Thursday Russia's defence ministry reported a strike on “a tug escorting” 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.
The port war now runs on both shores of the Black Sea
Russia says it struck cargo vessels and fuel storage at Ukraine's Pivdennyi and Chornomorsk ports on 25 August, extending a campaign against Ukrainian harbours it has run since mid-July. Across the water, Russia's own grain terminals at Novorossiysk are idle for a third week, and moving Kazakh oil through the same sea still costs nearly $400,000 a day.
The war reaches the Caspian
Iran says a Ukrainian strike killed a sailor on one of its commercial ships in the Caspian. The detour Kazakhstan is counting on runs across that same sea.
Tajikistan counts 17 dead on the Afghan border in six months
Tajikistan’s Anti-Drug Agency says Tajik forces fought 7 armed clashes with Afghan smugglers in the first half of 2026 and "neutralized" 17 Afghan citizens. In the same report, seizures fell 5% and drug crimes came in below last year’s count. The flow is shrinking on paper while the line gets deadlier, and that combination is the story.
Two wars close in on Kazakhstan’s flight map
Air Astana suspended flights to the United Arab Emirates on 12 July, turning one plane around in mid-air, after Iran declared the Strait of Hormuz closed and missiles reached the Gulf states. Days earlier a second Kazakh carrier dropped its route to Omsk over drone activity in Russia. Kazakhstan’s connectivity is being edited by two wars at once.
Who guards Tajikistan’s Afghan border while Russia is tied down in Ukraine
The Russia-led security bloc says the Tajik-Afghan frontier is its main problem in Central Asia, and it plans to send more help. Russia is stretched thin in Ukraine, and China, which has major assets to protect inside Tajikistan, has so far left the job to Moscow. That arrangement is starting to look fragile.