Central Asia Wire
Independent Central Asia Monitor
Breaking
Mongolia’s fuel headquarters counts 79 tank wagons of petrol, about 2 days of sales, as Russia’s Moscow refinery stops processing and Novak orders risk scenariosDushanbe and the CNPC venture discuss the China gas pipeline again, 12 years after its Tajik section broke groundA 56-metre bridge and a $940,000 bill: a Kyrgyz committee clears the agreement that puts the Bedel crossing on the road to ChinaArmenia’s parties have until Friday to register for the 25 October local elections, the last scheduled vote before the 2027 parliament is chosen

Search

429 results
  1. Telegram went dark across Kazakhstan and nobody will name the cause
    PoliticsBrief14 Aug

    Telegram went dark across Kazakhstan and nobody will name the cause

    The messenger failed nationwide on Thursday morning, nine days before the parliamentary vote. The state operator says its own network was fine, the ministry says technicians are looking into it, and after service returned the operator answered the question directly: we do not know.

  2. EcoIslamicBank's EU ban takes effect today, unmentioned in Bishkek
    EconomyBrief13 Aug

    EcoIslamicBank's EU ban takes effect today, unmentioned in Bishkek

    The European Union's transaction ban on EcoIslamicBank enters force today. It was listed on 23 July in the twenty-first sanctions package, for using Russia's financial messaging system to help Moscow work around sanctions, with a wind-down of roughly three weeks.

  3. Nobody in Tatarstan's government has said the word citizenship
    SecurityBrief13 Aug

    Nobody in Tatarstan's government has said the word citizenship

    Tatarstan began paying compensation for the Nizhnekamsk deaths on Wednesday. One outlet reports that the money goes to every family regardless of citizenship. That sentence appears in no primary text.

  4. Ankara's condolences on 10 August went to Colombia
    Turkish FactorBrief13 Aug

    Ankara's condolences on 10 August went to Colombia

    Eight Uzbek citizens and one Tajik citizen were killed at Nizhnekamsk on 10 August. The Turkish foreign ministry issued a condolence statement that day, numbered 155, about an earthquake in Colombia. It has published four releases since 10 August and none of them mentions the nine.

  5. Kazakhstan's parties debated as teams for the first time, and no one printed the promises
    PoliticsBrief13 Aug

    Kazakhstan's parties debated as teams for the first time, and no one printed the promises

    Seven parties put up two speakers each on Jibek Joly on Wednesday night, in the first team debates Kazakhstan has held. Adilet took 60.6% of the viewer poll that closed with the broadcast. The round in which each party made one concrete pledge has not been reproduced by any outlet that covered it.

  6. Russia now cancels a migrant’s work patent with nobody deciding to
    PoliticsBrief12 Aug

    Russia now cancels a migrant’s work patent with nobody deciding to

    Since 10 August the Russian interior ministry has run a service that automatically invalidates a foreign worker’s patent when the monthly tax advance goes unpaid.

  7. Armenia’s parliament asks Azerbaijan to pay for the pylons
    PoliticsBrief12 Aug

    Armenia’s parliament asks Azerbaijan to pay for the pylons

    Ilham Aliyev said on Tuesday night that Azerbaijan’s project to run power lines to Nakhchivan across Armenian territory is ready. Yerevan answered on Wednesday from the floor of the National Assembly, in two voices, and neither of them refused the line. The government said nothing.

  8. Tashkent will name its compensation when Moscow finishes investigating
    SecurityBrief12 Aug

    Tashkent will name its compensation when Moscow finishes investigating

    Eight Uzbek citizens killed at Nizhnekamsk on 10 August flew home on Wednesday aboard an Uzbek defence ministry aircraft, at state expense. Asked what their families will be paid, the migration agency in Tashkent said the figure will be known once the Russian investigation ends. Tatarstan started paying its own families the same day.

  9. Mongolia raises rates half a point, and the pumps come off rations on Saturday
    EconomyBrief12 Aug

    Mongolia raises rates half a point, and the pumps come off rations on Saturday

    The Bank of Mongolia’s monetary policy committee met out of turn on Wednesday and lifted the policy rate to 12.5%, with the reserve requirement for banks going up by the same half point. Hours later the fuel emergency headquarters said the purchase cap and the odd-even plate rule at the pumps end on 15 August. By the end of the working day the bank’s own site still showed the old rate.

  10. Afghanistan signs up to buy the gas it agreed to carry
    EnergyBrief12 Aug

    Afghanistan signs up to buy the gas it agreed to carry

    Türkmengaz and Afghan Gas have signed a memorandum under which Afghanistan will purchase TAPI gas for its own needs. The transit country is becoming a customer, at a price not yet negotiated.

  11. Inflation reaches 13% in the country that counts petrol by the litre
    EconomyBrief12 Aug

    Inflation reaches 13% in the country that counts petrol by the litre

    Mongolia's July consumer prices rose 13.0% year on year, and the central bank called its monetary policy committee into an extraordinary session for Wednesday afternoon. The fuel ledger, meanwhile, is declared full for August, on Ulaanbaatar's arithmetic alone.

  12. The injured are recounted before the dead can fly home
    EnergyBrief12 Aug

    The injured are recounted before the dead can fly home

    Uzbekistan's working group reached Nizhnekamsk on Tuesday evening. The special flight it came to organise still has no date, and the official counts of the wounded moved twice in a day.

  13. Nine hours over Novorossiysk, and the tanker due Thursday stays dark
    EnergyBrief12 Aug

    Nine hours over Novorossiysk, and the tanker due Thursday stays dark

    Russia's largest Black Sea port spent the night of 11-12 August under a combined drone attack that ran past nine hours. The crude tanker due at the CPC terminal on Thursday morning has meanwhile been silent on AIS for more than 40 hours.

  14. Russia's first answer on the Black Sea moratorium comes from a Duma deputy
    Turkish FactorBrief11 Aug

    Russia's first answer on the Black Sea moratorium comes from a Duma deputy

    Turkey's proposal for a moratorium on maritime strikes drew its first Russian pushback on Tuesday, at parliamentary level.

  15. Kazakhstan sets its state chatbot a target of 150 services
    EconomyBrief11 Aug

    Kazakhstan sets its state chatbot a target of 150 services

    The Tuesday cabinet in Astana spent its session on digital government and came out with dates. eGov GPT goes from 50 services to 150 by the end of the year, every public service centre becomes an artificial intelligence office by December, and the action plan for the whole programme is due within a week.

  16. Mongolia's ministry publishes the Moscow promise, and Russia says nothing
    EnergyBrief11 Aug

    Mongolia's ministry publishes the Moscow promise, and Russia says nothing

    The claim that Russia will send Mongolia an extra 25,000 tonnes of petrol this month moved on Tuesday from a minister's social account to his ministry's own website. No Russian institution has confirmed it.

  17. Uzbekistan's answer to eight dead workers is a special flight
    SecurityBrief11 Aug

    Uzbekistan's answer to eight dead workers is a special flight

    Tashkent's response to the deaths of eight of its citizens at Nizhnekamsk arrived on Tuesday as logistics. A working group flew to Kazan, the emergencies ministry said the bodies would come home on a special flight, and no Uzbek government text named who fired the drones.

  18. The shipping war’s damaged ships head for the yards
    Turkish FactorBrief11 Aug

    The shipping war’s damaged ships head for the yards

    Two of the vessels hit off Novorossiysk this month now have names and destinations: the container ship LDR Yasar is under damage assessment in Samsun, and the dry cargo carrier Gulluk is sailing to Istanbul for repairs.

  19. Rosatom signs for 100 megawatts of Kyrgyz wind
    EnergyBrief11 Aug

    Rosatom signs for 100 megawatts of Kyrgyz wind

    Rosatom’s wind arm, the Russian-Kyrgyz Development Fund and the Eurasian Development Bank have signed for a 100 MW wind farm at Kok-Moinok in the Issyk-Kul region. The signature is five days old; the full public record of it assembled only this week.

  20. A drone strike on Tatarstan kills eight Uzbek workers
    SecurityBrief11 Aug

    A drone strike on Tatarstan kills eight Uzbek workers

    Ukrainian drones struck Nizhnekamsk in Tatarstan on Monday and killed at least 13 people, among them 8 Uzbek construction workers and a 30-year-old Tajik. Tashkent formed a government commission the same day and flies a working group to Russia today.