Power Lines Episode 5 Transcript
[Music playing]
Anastasiia: Russia's war in Ukraine is just a continuation of a long line of Russian colonial aggression. It's just that now, people are finally starting to pay attention.
But the past still matters, and there remains a huge lack of knowledge in discussion about the history of Russian colonialism, all throughout the world, particularly in Central Asia.
Bektour: My name is Bektour Iskender. I'm a journalist from Kyrgyzstan. I think I'm most famous for being one of the founders of media organisation called Kloop, which is based in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.
I think we are most famous for our Journalism School. And throughout the 16 years of our existence, we've brought up a whole new generation of journalists in Kyrgyzstan.
At some point, Kloop also started being known for our investigations of corruption and organised crime.
Anastasiia: Bektour Iskender, co-founder Kloop, with Rinat Tuhvatshin. This was Bektour’s gateway into the world of journalism.
Bektour: In 2004, when Ukraine had the Orange Revolution, Rinat and I, we were one of the few young people in Kyrgyzstan, who were very closely following what actually is going on in Ukraine.
We were very much inspired by the processes. We were very much inspired by the will of the civil society to actually restore like the fair results of elections and so on. We also hated Russia.
So, we gathered friends and we actually explained to our friends like what exactly is going on in Ukraine, as we thought. And I remember we were like thinking, “Oh, probably it's not going to happen in Kyrgyzstan.” Something like that. Like, “We are not sure that we are so active. Our civil society is probably not that brave, like we're not going to do something like that.”
So funny that half a year, later we had a very similar revolution, which was also caused by elections, which was also sparked by people being very angry at how authorities actually organised the elections, and how authorities actually made sure that through a lot of violations, people who were very close allies of the president would be elected into the parliament.
[Protest chants]
Anastasiia: The first Kyrgyz Revolution, known as the Tulip Revolution, began after elections in 2005. People took to the streets to protest against the alleged corruption and authoritarianism of Kyrgyzstan’s, then president, Askar Akaev. The people toppled Akaev, he fled to Kazakhstan and then onto Russia, of course, and resigned in April of that same year.
You mentioned that you hate Russia, which I am not surprised by. But when I was preparing for this interview, and I was just reading on Kyrgyzstan, the two basic Google searches that would come up anytime I’d google anything about the country was, “Is Kyrgyzstan a part of Russia?” And “Is Kyrgyzstan controlled by Russia?”
Bektour: We were occupied by Russia in the 19th century. When Russia occupied Central Asia, it was a long process. It started in the 1850s, I guess, and then it lasted for the next 20 years or so because it's a huge territory.
They actually made use of Kyrgyz and Kazakh people being divided into many, many tribes, because we didn't have like a statehood in a European understanding of what statehood is.
So, like Kyrgyz people were a union of many tribes, dozens of tribes, who were not limiting themselves to any like political borders or something, because we were nomads, we didn't need borders.
They occupied the whole Central Asia. And then, in 1916, there was this famous Central Asian revolt against Russia. And it was caused by Russia trying to mobilise indigenous people of Central Asia to fight in the first World War. And we were like, “What the hell is that?” Like, “What do you want us to do, to fight Austria-Hungary?” Like, “We don't care about Austria-Hungary.”
So, basically people in Central Asia started a revolt against Russian Empire. It was the first like series, like huge revolt against Russian Empire, which ended up with Russian soldiers basically coming and killing us.
Unfortunately, it's still not known how many exactly people were murdered by Russian soldiers back then, because there is very, very small amount of data available.
Estimates suggest that something between 100,000 and 250,000. Those who were not killed, they were forced to flee to China. We call it genocide in Kyrgyzstan.
Anastasiia: This is often referred to as the Urkun, in the Kyrgyz language, meaning the great exodus. The Kyrgyzstan government has often stopped short of calling it a genocide, presumably to maintain their political and economic ties to Russia.
However, in 2016, a public commission concluded that it was exactly that. But this was not the end of Russia's colonial violence against Kyrgyzstan, because the Russian revolution of 1917 saw the brutal imperial terrorists, absorbed by the equally brutal Soviet Union.
Bektour: We were granted the status of republic eventually, but then, we basically faced same horrors as people from all other republics occupied by the Soviet Union faced. There were many terrible things that the Soviet Union did during that time.
They also drew in all these borders in Central Asia, which I don't even know who decided to draw them that way. Somebody in Moscow, I guess. We still actually struggle from how the borders were drawn.
Anastasiia: Stalin’s USSR implemented another policy over this period, with even more devastating consequences. This was collectivisation, where the Russian state seized all agricultural land into government ownership, in an attempt to distribute the food supply from rural areas to the rapidly industrialising urban cities.
In Ukraine, historians agreed that this was a major cause of the great famine in 1932/1933, the Holodomor, which killed millions and was a genocide of Ukrainians too.
The Kazakhs and the Kyrgyz, similarly suffered. How could a process of agricultural collectivisation ever work for nomadic people without permanent settlements?
Bektour: So, Kyrgyz and Kazakhs were mostly dealing with livestock, while Uzbeks and Tajiks, would mostly deal with agriculture.
And we would then exchange. Like every season, especially before the winter, Kyrgyz and Kazakhs would come down from tallest mountain, valleys, and exchange meat for vegetables or fruits or crops or whatever they needed.
And then when Bolsheviks came to power, they forced Kyrgyz and Kazakh people to stop being nomads. Because they were like, “Oh, you have so much livestock. Like why the hell do you have it? You should give it to the Soviet state.”
[Music playing]
Anastasiia: So, I have one final question. How come you speak Ukrainian?
Bektour: I was fascinated by Ukraine since I was a kid. I'm not joking. And then, I started traveling to Ukraine a lot. Actually, my first city was Donetsk, really.
Anastasiia: That's insane.
Bektour: I was an election observer in Donetsk, in 2010, when the-
Anastasiia: Really?
Bektour: So, that was my introduction to Ukraine.
Anastasiia: That’s incredible.
Bektour: And then, I spent like a month in Kharkiv in 2012, and then I went to Euromaidan as a journalist.
So, when Euromaidan started, I think many people in Ukraine still do not realise how important it was for us in Central Asia. Actually, how current war is very important for us in Central Asia, because I believe that Ukraine really fights for our freedom too.
Anastasiia: Russia's vast size and diversity of peoples means it is not some static monolithic thing. Its brutal history of colonial oppression has scarred people and lands from Kyiv to Buchach. And now, the Eurasian lands, which border Russia to the South are feeling the aftershocks of the bombs falling on Ukraine.
Because this war and Russia's collapse is lighting the fuse on many of Central Asia's dormant conflicts, dismantling any semblance of peace that Russia's neighbours have relied on them to maintain.
In Eurasia, as much as in the West, the invasion of Ukraine has created a precarious, dangerous future.
Since you can speak Ukrainian, I'll say thank you in Ukrainian:
[Speaks Ukrainian]
From Message Heard and the Kyiv Independent, you're listening to Power Lines: From Ukraine to the World.
Jakub: In this series, we're going to be mapping the undercurrents and global consequences of the war in Ukraine. Beginning in Kyiv and following the roads out, wherever they may lead. I'm Jakub Parusinski.
Anastasiia: And I am Anastasiia Lapatina.
Jakub: This week, we're talking about the Eurasian region surrounding Russia, to explore just how destabilising the war in Ukraine has been to all the countries that lie on Russia's periphery to the south and east.
Anastasiia: I'm really excited about today's episode, because I feel like our listeners will love it, because this topic is not something that's very often discussed in the media or in podcasts, or just in general, in the public discussion of the war in Ukraine. Everyone just kind of tends to ignore the Caucasus and Central Asia.
But let's first start with defining what Eurasia even is, Jakub.
Jakub: So, Eurasia is essentially this idea that pops up a little bit over a hundred years ago, of Russia being a distinct civilisation between Europe and Asia. And it's very much the territory of the Russian empire. Something that Russians also like to call their near abroad, the territories that they influence.
Over the past couple of decades, it's been revived by people like Alexander Dugin, who is famously and somewhat erroneously, considered to be an ideological leader of sort of this Putinist expansionism.
Over the last couple of decades, this idea is reviving. And as we go along, Russia also creates a bunch of institutions to formalise this Eurasianism, whether it's the Commonwealth of Independent States, which appears after the dissolution of the USSR, and includes basically everybody except for the Baltic states. And then later, the CSTO, as well as the Eurasian Union.
Anastasiia: Wait Jakub, before you go on, the Eurasian Economic Union, was it, and the CSTO, what are those?
Jakub: Russia has this tradition of mimicking what is done in the West. So, the Eurasian Economic Union is essentially a crooked mirror version of the European Union, and the CSTO is a crooked mirror version of NATO.
Anastasiia: Okay, fantastic.
Jakub: Why are we looking at what's happening in Eurasia?
Anastasiia: Well, I think it's interesting that this part of the world is first of all, just geographically enormous, and it is also very closely tied to Russia, which is this huge, attempting to be a hegemon kind of state, which has been at everyone's radar for so long.
But few people tend to care about the brutal Russian imperial history that has affected all of these countries, that are within this space that we're talking about. Almost every country in this space has had some sort of huge tragedy perpetrated by the Russian state.
And for us, like for people who are surrounding Russia, this is just a part of the deal.
Jakub: I would say equally, it was very much an integral part of the Russian Empire, and then of the Soviet Union, and all of the tragedies that came along with that. But it's also a source of great wealth, right?
Anastasiia: Oh, absolutely. And authoritarians too.
Jakub: Oh yeah, absolutely. So, it's very much a club of authoritarian countries these days, surrounded by other authoritarian countries.
You've got Russia, China, Iran, Turkey, bordering this zone. And then, within it, you've got Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, some of the most authoritarian and anti-democratic countries on the planet.
[Music playing]
So, who did you speak to this week?
Anastasiia: Well, Jakub, I'm honestly thrilled to tell you, because when it comes to looking at Russia and Putin and the enormous global consequences of Russia's war in Ukraine, there are very, very few people who are more qualified to speak on this than our guest this week, Fiona Hill.
She's originally from the UK, but has spent the past few decades working in the U.S. government. Fiona has served under three U.S. presidents, first as intelligence analyst, focusing on Russia and Eurasia for the National Intelligence Council. And more recently, as the Senior Director for European and Russian Affairs, on the National Security Council staff.
She's currently a senior fellow at Brookings, in Washington, where she works in policy, focusing again, on the Eurasian region. And she's also on top of all of that, the author of various books about Russian politics, including the incredible book called, Mr. Putin, Operative in the Kremlin.
So, first, I wanted to speak to her about Russia itself and the huge number of ethnic minorities, who live within its borders just to understand how this history and this diversity of Russia is affecting the war today.
So, I wanted to start with of course, Russia and the Russian Federation, and specifically, the federation part. Because I feel like a lot of people have this idea of Russia being sort of a homogenous entity.
But in fact, Russia has a very, very difficult federalist structure. It has all of these republics that are all equal subject to the Russian Federation, have their own laws, their own politicians, et cetera.
So, maybe, you could talk a bit about how that maybe historically developed and how that functions and why Russia is the way it is. And whether it is indeed homogenous, or whether there's a lot of diversity there.
Fiona: Well, no, thanks very much, Anastasiia. And obviously, that's a pretty critical question for thinking about the war in Ukraine in this context as well, because we always assume that Russia is monolithic.
And in fact, Vladimir Putin, and those around him in the Kremlin would like us to think so. Because going back to 2004 and in the wake of the Beslan attacks, when Chechen rebels seized a school in Beslan in the North Caucasus, the Russian government used that as an opportunity to impose what they called the vertical of power.
Which was in many respects, eroding some of the autonomy of the different regions of the Russian Federation that had really emerged since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and in the kind of political and economic and social chaos of the 1990s.
And what we saw in the initial construction of the Russian Federation, in the Soviet period, was a kind of mirroring of the Soviet Union, writ large.
So, just as in the 1920s, you had the constituent Soviet Republic set up the Russian Federation and Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, et cetera — inside of Russia itself, you had, as you described, this really complicated series of different subjects of the Russian Federation, which reflect in part, history, different cultures, different ethnicities, and in some cases, different forms of political control.
And in the 1990s, that all started to fall apart. There were parts of the Russian Federation that basically, tried to follow the same path of the Soviet Union towards dissolution, most notably, of course, Chechnya.
Anastasiia: Of course.
Fiona: Which had a population of over a million, had a special status within the Russian Federation. And through a very close reading, of the Russian constitution, felt that they also had a right to apply for independence, from the Russian Federation, just as the other constituent republics had become independent of the Soviet Union.
And in the 1990s, there was a whole process under President Boris Yeltsin at the time, to create a set of arrangements, almost for complete devolution of authority, including some degrees of fiscal devolution, not just political authority, with some of the most complicated parts of the Russian Federation.
Chechnya was one, which of course, was racked by war and conflict with Russia, but also Tatarstan in the Urals region, which had historical rights to a certain degree of autonomy, from Moscow going back, in fact, to the period of Catherine the Great.
And in 1994, there was a conclusion of a separate agreement between Moscow and Tatarstan, that then became a model for other bilateral agreements between Moscow and other regions, including some regions that had no different ethnic, religious or any kind of cultural difference in the center. But just that they were trying to exert their own autonomy.
Now, along came Beslan, Vladimir Putin was already four years into his presidency, he had obviously been completely opposed to this devolutionary activity, and he wanted to bring everything back to the center again.
And he used Beslan and the atrocities — of course, there's a lot of controversy around what actually happened in Beslan, whether that was also to some degree, instigated by the Russian services themselves.
But nonetheless, that was used as an excuse to overturn most of these autonomous arrangements, and to reimpose the central authority of the state, both politically and fiscally, which we saw kind of unfolding over the subsequent period.
Anastasiia: And in some of those republics, for example, Buryatia, Yakutia or the Republic of Sakha, Dagestan, we are seeing not only huge mobilisation efforts by the Russian government, but also, protest against that in some places.
Why do you think the Kremlin is targeting ethnic minorities in its mobilisation? Because to an average observer, I think a lot of them seem very poorly trained.
And then, also, places like Buryatia, that's nearly 6,000 kilometers away from Ukraine. So, why bother in spending the resources to move all of these people to the front as well.
So, what are the motivations here? Why not just mobilise people around Moscow or Saint Petersburg or anywhere closer to Ukraine?
Fiona: Well, there's some pretty obvious answers to this, but first of all, this is an old imperial, as well as Soviet tactic.
When you looked at other wars that the Soviet Union engaged in, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, there was a lot of mobilisation of citizens of the Soviet Union from Central Asia, for example.
They were also, kind of from impoverished areas with very little political clout. And so, they were obvious targets for conscription, and then recruitment, and then dispatching into these conflicts.
There is another element in the case of Ukraine, for example, that you don't want people who would necessarily identify themselves too closely to Ukrainians. But look, there's a long tradition in all empires, of sending conscript forces from the periphery to fight in your wars.
Also, what Russia has tried to do consistently, in it's more modern wars, including in Chechnya and elsewhere, has tried to avoid a concentration of casualties in places where that would have a political impact.
So, if there was a huge number of casualties from Saint Petersburg and Moscow, there would be backlash. If there are casualties from far flung regions, as you say, thousands of miles away from Moscow, it's much more difficult for people to have the protest impact felt.
And if you spread out the casualties across the whole country, then you don't get these concentrations of deaths and injuries, that could again, lead to protests.
Now, of course, there has actually been concentrations of casualties in the very initial parts of the war. And of course, we are seeing large numbers of casualties from places like Buryatia, from Dagestan, and other places that are producing a backlash.
So, this doesn't always work. And of course, we've seen now with the efforts to mobilise forces on a much larger scale, including from Saint Petersburg and Moscow, an outflux, the flight of young men from all of those cities showing very clearly that they protest with their feet, this effort to drag them into the war.
[Music playing]
Jakub: Here's the thing; the whole challenge of Russia and the danger of Russia, is that it's this kind of multicultural, multiethnic empire that essentially, has to constantly manage and manipulate all of these different nations, tribes, creeds, both across its border regions, but also inside. And that is something that Russia utilises to conquer new territories. It essentially goes out and tries to incorporate them.
But then, once you have all of these people inside, that's actually kind of difficult to manage. And if you look at the Russian Federation, it's got all of these different forms of federation. Like there isn't one type of state, there's a dozen of them. And so, these nations are essentially a source of great weakness, for Russia as well.
Anastasiia: You mean like the minorities within Russia? Or like the republics within Russia?
Jakub: Yes. I think, well, that's what has created today's Russia. And that's what also, is the potential trigger for the instability that everyone is afraid of, if all of a sudden, Russia is seen as weak, which it is right now, I think very much so.
Ukraine has proven that Russia is not as strong as it seems. Well, what prevents the Dagestanis, the Chechens, the Tartars, all of these other nations to rise up and demand independence.
Anastasiia: It is a very, very sad situation in my eyes, because this diversity is incredible. The amount of cultures, the amount of different religions and languages, all of these could be flourishing. But this imperial, and then Soviet past, has just like killed any hope now. Because we're not seeing some sort of full-scale upheavals.
Jakub: And I think, Fiona, also goes into this; the minorities nations, they are part of the way that you manage this country, because you send soldiers from distant regions to fight and die in other ones.
But frankly, Lenin put it best, “Russia is the prison of nations.” Right?
Anastasiia: Never thought I'd say that or agree with that, but yes, that is true.
[Music playing 00:24:56]
Jakub: And so, now the problem is that the gang that has been running this prison is in trouble.
Anastasiia: The Ukrainians have been talking about the fact that Russia has to disintegrate. That the perfect outcome for all of us, is if all of these minorities that are incorporated in the Kremlin’s machine might start finally realising that they're being used as cannon fodder, and start demanding some sort of independence or succession or something like that.
Do you think this sort of awakening of minorities is possible, or is this just wishful thinking?
Fiona: No, I think the minorities have been actually awake the entire time, but they have been suppressed in their ability to exert any influence, because of this vertical of power that's been steadily imposed over the last 20 years since Beslan. And the reversal of many of these agreements on autonomy that were concluded in the 1990s.
So, look, I'm not sure that we should be really aiming for the disintegration of Russia here. I think that could have all kinds of unintended consequences, to be very clear.
But it's the reassertion of what used to be Rossiya, the Rossiiskii Federatsii, not the Russkii Federatsii, because what Putin and others around him have been trying to emphasise, is this 80% so called ethnic Russian civilisational core, with most people being Russian Orthodox.
Anastasiia: Yeah. That’s not true, right?
Fiona: And that is not actually the multinational, multicultural, multi-confessional, Russian Federation.
And Putin himself, right up until his return to the presidency in 2011 and ‘12, when he started going on and on and on about Russia and Ukraine being one nation, and all of the ties there, was very careful to always emphasise this broader conception of Rossiya, not Russiya.
And the definition for kind of non-Russian speakers is significant, it was an idea of Russia was a more civic, citizen-based, multi-ethnic, multi-professional, multilingual state, as opposed to something that was narrowly defined about Russia, Russian language, and Russia orthodoxy.
And this was the lesson that was taken away from the 1990s, that the Russian Federation could have fallen apart in the same way that the Soviet Union did, because of all of these differences internally; regionally, geographically, and in terms of the different identities.
And Putin had spent a lot of time, like Yeltsin before him, creating and crafting a larger identity. He's thrown all of that out the window.
So, actually, I think Putin is getting himself into problems, by this narrow definition of the world, this fixation on Ukrainians having to be Russian because there's the dominance of Russian language or of orthodoxy, for example, and of the church.
It's actually opening back up again, the fishes that we saw emerging in the late Soviet period, and also, in the 1990s, during the early days of the Russian Federation.
Anastasiia: Right. So, it all goes back to Russia kind of grappling with its colonial past. This is something that Ukrainians talk about constantly, but clearly-
Fiona: It's a purely colonial war. Exactly. It's a war of the restoration of empire in Putin's own mind here.
I often make the parallel, that this is very similar to if the United Kingdom tried to retake Ireland. Basically, Ireland was colonised by the English centuries and centuries ago, long before Russia was even on the map.
And there was the imposition of the English language on top of the Irish Gaelic language. And of course, when Ireland got its independence, which is about the same time as the Russian Revolution, and ultimately, the creation of the Soviet Union, there was part of Ireland that was left independent of the new Irish state, still within the United Kingdom, Ulster, the northern part, which had been very heavily settled by protestants and British Scots and elsewhere, very similar to Donbas.
And in fact, that conflict has continued for a considerable period of time. So, if England suddenly decided that it wanted to reincorporate Ireland back into the United Kingdom, we'd be in the same kind of problem that we see today.
And I think that people persist in thinking somehow of Ukraine (this is people on the outside) as part of Russia because of that kind of imperial conquest, and that kind of imperial exertion of authority.
But it's no different what Russia is doing, than from any other old imperial power in trying to retake territory by conquest that has long moved away.
[Music playing]
Jakub: You know what all of this really reminds me of?
Anastasiia: What?
Jakub: – is this idea of Prometheism.
Anastasiia: Okay. What is that?
Jakub: This all goes back to interwar Poland, which has just become independent from the Russian Empire, has just fought a war against the Soviet Union, and is very worried about further aggression from the East.
And during this time, they essentially come up with this idea that they call Prometheism, which sort of goes back to the Greek God, Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods and gave it to mankind, in a symbol of enlightenment and resistance to democracy.
And basically, what they want to do, is they want to reach out and support all the non-Russian nations that inhabit the Baltic-Black Caspian Sea basins, with a message that emphasises freedom, uncompromising stance towards autocracy, and the need to rise up against Russian oppression.
Anastasiia: Sounds great so far.
Jakub: And if you look at that policy, which is essentially, rather than tackling Russia head-on, it's finding Russia through a hundred different battlefields. That is actually the policy that now, Zelenskyy has adopted.
So, a couple of months ago, now, I don't know if you remember, there was this video of Zelenskyy-
Anastasiia: Oh, of course. That speech was unforgettable.
Jakub: Well, he's in Kyiv and he's next to a monument of a hero of Dagestan and Chechnya. And he has this kind of speech that, “Ukraine honors and knows the heroes of Dagestan and Chechnya. We believe in you. We believe in your fight against Russian authoritarianism.”
And very soon after that, the Ukrainian parliament recognises Ichkeria, which is the name of Chechnya, the independent version as an occupied territory by Russia. Boom!
Anastasiia: Beautiful. I love that.
Jakub: Exactly the same sort of philosophy, 80 years later, back in play. Okay, that was my really excited part about Prometheism. But it really does raise a question of, is it possible for there to be new hotspots and new theatres to appear for the war?
And I guess the answer is, they kind of already have, just not within Russia, but within the regions abroad; Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, war is all over Russia's doorsteps.
Anastasiia: You're totally right. And I was really happy to hear Fiona mention how this is a typical colonial war, because Eurasia really should be said in this context of colonialism. Everything that happens here in this region has been affected in one way or another by Russian colonialism, be it language, literature, et cetera.
So, I think this is really important for people to understand, and this goes back to something we talked about in the beginning of the episode, that this kind of imperialism is just not discussed really.
[Music playing]
Jakub: Should we move deeper into Eurasia then?
Anastasiia: Yes. Because next, I wanted to hear more about the country surrounding Russia, the ones that make up actually, what we know of as Eurasia. And after speaking to Bektour, I wanted to hear from Fiona about the impact of the war over there.
Let's move beyond Russia and transitioning to talking about Central Asia and the Caucasus. So, all of these huge territories, what we'd call, for lack of a better term, it's a Russian sphere of influence. And I know it's a big task, but if you could put it simply, what is Russia currently doing there? What is its role?
Fiona: Well look, it's quite complicated, because as you're suggesting there, there's this history of conquest, but there's also a history of war among or between Russia and other neighbouring empires, the Ottoman Empire.
So, Turkey becomes an element in all of this. And it's important to bear that in mind, when we think about the way that Turkey and Russia face off in the Black Sea.
We've also got to remember Iran, because in terms of the Caucasus again, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, there was Iranian influence there, part of the Persian Empire, which also bled into parts of Central Asia as well.
And then look, even China, when we kind of start to think about the kind of larger influence in Central Asia, Xinjiang, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, the kind of back and forth of populations across those bodies there; Uyghurs, in addition to Kyrgyz and Kazakhs, for example — Russia doesn't operate in a vacuum.
So, when we say, what is Russia doing there? Russia's also having to kind of bear in mind what some of its earlier imperial enemies and kind of contemporary seeming allies are up to, and there's a lot of back and forth.
And what we've seen, is before the invasion of Ukraine, I think Russia was fairly confident that it had the upper hand in all of the relationships in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Although, China was emerging in Central Asia as a major economic and trading power.
But since the war, and particularly since its massive setbacks on the battlefield in Ukraine, Russia's star has faded. And we are now seeing the emergence of a backlash and pushback.
In Central Asia, there was this remarkable video of the Tajik President, Rahmon berating Putin for his lack of respect and offhand treatment of Tajiks and others in Central Asia.
We've seen Kazakhstan and others pulling away from Russia, even though last year it looked like Kazakhstan was increasingly dependent on Russia after Russia intervened to prop up current president, Tokayev, after a whole bunch of internal disputes.
And Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, are also exerting their own attempts at autonomy.
And Armenia is trying to seek a way of resolving its long-standing disputes and problems with Turkey. Azerbaijan of course, taking huge advantage of the war in Ukraine to press its advantage in Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia by reigniting the conflict there.
We're actually sort of seeing that it's very difficult for Russia to remain the arbiter of all of the events in the neighbourhood. So, it's setbacks on the battlefield in Ukraine, it's also seeing setbacks in its once dominant relationship in places like the Caucasus and Central Asia.
But I see here now, a complete shift in the dynamic from what it was, prior to February, 2022.
Anastasiia: Now, let's turn to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, because both of these countries actually are members of this Russian dominated CSTO, the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, which for our listeners, is this Moscow-led alliance, made of Armenia, Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. And it's essentially Russia's Eurasian NATO.
So, when in mid-September these two countries began fighting it off, it really seemed to observers, like it's a trend. It's if certain countries were seizing the moment when Putin's attention is elsewhere, in Ukraine.
Is this something that's beginning to happen? Is there a particular correlation between the fact that Putin is doing his own thing, and these countries kind of reigniting the conflicts, that have been frozen for some time?
Fiona: Yeah, so look, I think what we have to bear in mind here, is there were lots of contested borders, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, both internally, within states and also externally, on the kind of the borders between states, the borders that were inherited from the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
And then, of course, there’s that huge border with China, that extends all the way from Central Asia through Russia. Because what Putin has done in invading Ukraine twice; in 2014, annexing Crimea, and then sparking off all the war in Donbas.
And then, again, in 2022, he basically said, “Things have changed, the borders of the former Soviet Union, the borders of the newly independent states” (not so newly independent, but the established states) “are now up for grabs.”
So, all of those conflicts that have existed, since the time of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and some that have preceded it, are now in effect, reignited by what Russia's done.
That's why it's so critical to address what Russia is doing in Ukraine because, as you mentioned, there are disputes between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. There are disputes in the Himalayas, between India and China, for example.
Or in the borders where Tajikistan, kind of abuts there. There are old disputes that go along the border with Afghanistan, as well as disputes going along the borders with Iran and Turkey. So, this is again, a potential disaster.
Anastasiia: And India and Pakistan probably have something to say too.
Fiona: Well, exactly. In Kashmir and elsewhere, not to mention all of the disputes that China has with every single one of its neighbours, about territory.
And ultimately could have with Russia itself, because of vast swathes of territory in the Russian far East, along the Amur River, and extending east of Baikal, out to Vladivostok, this is all territory that was taken in the 1860s.
This was what we were grappling with in the wake of World War II and during the Cold Wars, how to basically acknowledge and settle the territorial disposition that Europe and Eurasia and the rest of the world found itself in, as a result of the dissolution of empires.
What Putin has done is basically put everything up for grabs. So, it's no surprise that all of the territorial conflicts are being fought out again.
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Anastasiia: Jakub, you were in Georgia recently, tell us what is it like there? I know a bunch of Russians are walking around, demanding that everybody speaks Russian with them and stuff like that.
Jakub: Well, at least that wasn't really my feeling. Yes, there are a lot of Russians right now, but they seem rather meek. Everyone feels like the fact that they have a place to live, to sleep, to eat, that is not in Russia, where they won't be mobilised and sent to the trenches of Ukraine, makes them feel rather grateful.
And they do realise that their existence in Georgia is precarious. Georgia, at any moment, could essentially ask them to return, not renew their stays, or kick them out in some other way. So, there is a very feeling of, “Please, please don't kick us out.”
So, look, one thing that we haven't talked about is, there's now been two wars involving CSTO members. Just for context, CSTO, this sort of Russian equivalent of NATO, is supposed to prevent war, especially like in the case of Armenia and Azerbaijan, where Armenia is a CSTO member, Azerbaijan is not. Aggression of a non-member on a member should result in some kind of action. It didn't.
Anastasiia: Of course.
Jakub: Like how big of a price is Russia going to pay for this? Like has it already lost its power in Central Asia, the Caucasus, Eurasia?
Anastasiia: Right. It was so bizarre and interesting to see how when the whole conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia reignited, and Armenia asked Russia for help, but Russia did pretty much nothing.
And Armenians went on to protest, demanding that the government withdraws from the CSTO, because it's useless and isn't actually being helpful. And like literally, a few days later, Pelosi, the U.S. House Speaker, lands in Yerevan.
Jakub: Shows up in Yerevan.
Anastasiia: And is like, “U.S. is firmly with Armenia. The U.S. has always supported Armenia and will always continue to support Armenia.” And I was just like, “Everyone knows what you're doing.”
And of course, this is just how diplomacy works, I get it, but in that specific instance, the timing was so quick, like the U.S. jumped on this ship immediately. Russia is in such deep shit (excuse me) in Ukraine, that like the hope for Armenia, that Russia is going to intervene and do something is very small.
Jakub: Yeah. At the same time, this isn't a vacuum, as Fiona pointed out. You have China, you have Iran, you have Turkey, you have the U.S., who are all looking to step in and shape the region. It's really hard to understate what a massive strategic mistake and self-own, the invasion of Ukraine has been.
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Anastasiia: I wanted to find out some more about these difficult implications for India and China, next. And I felt like this was the perfect way to end this episode.
Moving sort of southeast, we should also, probably talk about the two biggest players, arguably in all of this Eurasian mess, being China and India. And both countries are of course very close to Russia.
Together, I think they buy roughly half of all Russian exported oil, which is a huge amount, and also a huge amount of Russian weapons. But in the light of the war in Ukraine, it looks like both of them are starting to be a bit cautious about their relationship with Putin. Are you seeing this too?
Fiona: Yes. I think, for China obviously, and President Xi, we've just seen the Party Congress and the way that he has consolidated his power, admitting that he'd made any kind of mistake in his limitless partnership and support for Putin, ahead of the war in Ukraine, would be very difficult. He doesn't look like somebody who's ever ready to admit a mistake.
But we have seen China behaving very cautiously. And I still live in some hope that China will exert some constraint and restraint on Russia, particularly when it comes to some of the more extreme contemplations on the part of Putin, about using nuclear weapons, for example.
That would be deeply destabilising for China as well, not just, of course, the dreadful impacts that that would have, because China isn't I think in the mood to see the destabilising the strategic nuclear balance globally, which would have impact in its own region.
Putin is making the case for basically, the dilution really of China's strategic position, as being the dominant nuclear power apart from the United States in the Asia Pacific region. If I was South Korea and Japan and any other neighbour, I'd be wanting to have a nuclear weapon.
So, I think China sees that there's complexity here, and we'll have to just watch very carefully what China does.
For India, I think the whole situation is nightmarish. India relies heavily on Russian military capability – training, weapons – and of course, Russia will not be in a position now to boost India's military forces and equipment and ammunition, because of the war in Ukraine.
And India, of course, has continued to stand off with Pakistan, complications, very difficult relationship with China. And what India was looking to Russia, was support against potential comfort with China, which seems highly unlikely now.
Russia seems very much in China's camp. The support from China is critical for Putin. And if there's another outbreak of hostilities in the Himalayas, like we saw a couple of years ago, India could not rely on Russia in any way, I think.
But India, I think finds itself in an extraordinary difficult position, but I think India has a lot of disquiet and doesn't want to find that it's (as a result of all of this) in a massive rift with Russia, United States, China.
It basically wants to somehow balance all of this off. And that is of course, impossible under the current circumstances. But of course, as you said, India's cashing in, it's getting cheaper oil.
Anastasiia: This is just my personal reflections from what you said, but it really doesn't seem to be benefiting anybody, like at all.
Fiona: No. This war is a lose-lose proposition for absolutely everyone on the planet. Basically, I've said in other interviews, Vladimir Putin is behaving like it's the 1780s, when we're already in the end game for climate, COVID, all of these existential crises for humanity. And he's behaving as if we have hundreds of years still to play out, and we absolutely don't.
Anastasiia: So, to wrap this all up, it's clear that Russian influence in the region is weakening. As the co-host of this podcast, Jakub, my colleague, as he put it, it's almost as if this is a puzzle where Russia is so involved in all of these different countries, in the Caucasus and Central Asia.
And now, once it starts pulling away, and it’s influence is declining, and it’s power is declining, everything almost starts to fall apart. Is there going to be more instability? I know predictions are stupid in a way, but-
Fiona: Well, there's inevitably more instability from all of this. The invasion of Ukraine is an inherently destabilising act, that has global reverberations. This is why I've said many times, that this is another world war-like scenario, with great power conflict, with the unravelling of the global order and implications for pretty much every country out there.
Russia's manipulation of the narrative causes instability. Russia is out there with the Wagner Group, propping up dictators and regimes and hunters from Africa and elsewhere.
Anastasiia: And committing atrocities too.
Fiona: So, everything that Russia was doing at the moment, unfortunately, is inherently destabilising. This is not a one or even two or three-dimensional conflict, a war here. As I said, we need to have every perspective brought in. This is global.
And there have been the effects on food security and energy and climate change, because we are not tackling any of these issues. We're losing time. We need to have international cohesion and coherence of what we're going to do, on some of these critical issues.
Putin is making it impossible for any kind of international cooperation, and he's destroying one of the critical countries for thinking about climate change and the sustainability of agriculture in the form of Ukraine. Ukraine is a global breadbasket, not just a regional breadbasket.
And this is absolutely and utterly disastrous. There are so many tragic parts of this, but in actual fact, there's some very capable Russian diplomats. And there hasn't always been everything negative about Russian diplomacy in Russian foreign policy.
Russia actually, has in the past and in the recent past, played some important roles in creating diplomatic firms. The war in Tajikistan comes to mind, for example, in some of the settings as well. But that's all out the window at the moment.
So, the kind of the role that Russia could play, that could actually be destabilising some of these places, by trading on some of these past relationships, is being distorted, by these exigencies of basically getting a victory at any cost and every cost, in Ukraine.
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Anastasiia: Thank you so much again, for finding the time. It was fascinating to listen to you.
Fiona: Thank you so much Nastya. It was a pleasure.
Anastasiia: In two weeks in Power Lines, we will be speaking with Oliver Bullough, the writer and investigative journalist, to explore the rise and recent fall of oligarchies, from Moscow to Kyiv, and then across the world.
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Anastasiia: Power Lines is a partnership between the Kyiv Independent and Message Heard. It was produced by Bea Duncan, Harry Stott, and Talia Augustidis. The executive producer is Sandra Ferrari. The theme music is by Tom Biddle and Alfie Godfrey.