On August 6, Ukrainian troops shocked the world by crossing the border into Russia's Kursk region. The unexpected attack by a small country against a nuclear-armed state shattered Russian President Vladimir Putin's sense of greatness and invincibility. While Western analysts have focused primarily on the tactical advance of Ukrainian troops into Russian territory, the attack also exposed Russia's strategic weaknesses as a so-called great power.
Russia has been isolated in the Ukraine conflict and has been left without military or political support by its allies inside or outside the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a NATO-like military alliance that includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
The Central Asian countries are politically and militarily linked to Russia through CSTO membership or bilateral alliance treaties. One of the basic principles of maintaining a military organization or alliance is coordination between member states and political assistance when deemed necessary. Similar to NATO's Article 5, CSTO's Article 4 provides that “if one of the Contracting Parties is subjected to aggression by any state or group of states, this shall be considered an aggression against all the Contracting Parties to this Treaty.” The same principles form the basis of the alliance. Uzbekistan is not a CSTO member state, but signed and ratified an alliance treaty with Russia in 2005.
Although Moscow has agreements with the Central Asian states (except Turkmenistan, which maintains a policy of “active neutrality”), the Central Asian states have maintained a concerted silence and have not provided Russia with any military or political support amid the Kursk intervention in Ukraine.
This shows the ineffectiveness of the alliance and proves that the CSTO exists largely as an armchair theory, severely undermining Russia’s regional authority.
This is not the first time that the issue of CSTO incompetence has come up: Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko criticized the organisation for ignoring Kyrgyzstan's requests for help during ethnic clashes in 2010. “What kind of organisation is this, if blood is being shed in one of its member states and this organisation is silent?” he said.
Furthermore, rifts were created by Uzbekistan’s withdrawal from the CSTO (twice, in 1999 and 2012) and, more recently, Armenia’s freezing of its CSTO membership following the CSTO’s inaction amid the ultimately successful Azerbaijani onslaught on the Nagorno-Karabakh region, creating a serious reputational crisis for the CSTO.
The coordinated silence of Central Asian states as Ukraine invades Russian territory is another blow to the CSTO as a military alliance and to Russia's reputation as a so-called great power.
It is important to note that the Kremlin has not requested any military assistance from its allies in accordance with the provisions of the CSTO Charter or the Alliance Treaty. On August 16, the CSTO press service responded to a request from Russian media regarding the invasion of Kursk by saying that it would “take all necessary steps” if necessary, but noted that no such request has yet been made.
But the failure of the Central Asian states to mount any official response to the Ukrainian intervention in Kursk should be seen as another important piece of evidence of Moscow’s declining authority in the region, as I have argued before.
Thus, the trends emerging as a result of the Kursk Crisis may have far-reaching implications for regional processes in Central Asia and provide opportunities for Western countries to increase their presence in the region.
At the Central Asian Summit in Astana on August 9, participating leaders presented a roadmap for aligning trade and defense policies. For example, Uzbekistan's President Shavkat Mirziyoyev highlighted the negative impact of the Russia-Ukraine crisis on regional trade and said regional integration is the best way to mitigate these challenges. Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev called for aligning regional security and defense policies among the five Central Asian republics. Russia's decline could be an opportunity to put these efforts into practice.
These unfolding events also create fertile ground for Washington to revitalize its involvement in regional processes. The weakening of Russian authority provides an opportunity to restore US credibility and presence in the region, which was undermined after the withdrawal from Afghanistan. According to the revised US Central Asia Strategy 2019-2025, Washington aims to strengthen the sovereignty and independence of Central Asian countries by promoting cooperation among them and reducing the influence of Russia and China. The emergence of a strong and independent Central Asia is therefore consistent with US strategic objectives.
However, even amid Russia's decline, it remains unclear whether all five Central Asian countries are ready to band together through regional integration. While Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan advocate greater integration, not all leaders place the same emphasis on institutionalizing regional cooperation. There are also doubts about whether the United States will remain committed to strengthening the sovereignty of Central Asian countries, especially if Donald Trump wins the presidential election and revives his “America First” policy.
