On August 6, Ukraine took the world by surprise with its bold and daring invasion of Russia's Kursk region. This surprise attack by a small country against a nuclear-armed state shattered Russian President Vladimir Putin's carefully crafted narrative of greatness and invincibility. While Western observers focused primarily on the tactical advance of the Ukrainian military, the attack also revealed deeper strategic vulnerabilities in Russia's so-called great power status. Notably, even Russia's closest allies within the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) — Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan — have not supported it militarily or politically, leaving Moscow isolated in the conflict.
Established in 2002, the CSTO was initially intended to counter external attacks on its member states and harmonize their foreign policy positions. Similar to Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, CSTO member states are bound by the principle of collective defense. Article 4 of the organization's charter states that an attack on any member state of the bloc by another state or group of states is considered an attack on all member states. However, the apparent inaction of Russia's allies in the CSTO in the recent Kursk invasion has dealt a decisive blow to the credibility of the Moscow-led military-political alliance, reducing it to a mere “paper tiger.”
This is not the first time that the CSTO's ineffectiveness has surfaced. Earlier, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko criticized the alliance for ignoring Kyrgyzstan's request for assistance during ethnic clashes in 2010, asking: “What kind of organization is this, if blood is being shed in one of its member states and this organization is silent?” Moreover, Uzbekistan's two withdrawals from the CSTO (first in 1999, then in 2012) exposed cracks within the alliance. More recently, Armenia suspended its participation in the bloc after the CSTO failed to live up to its promises when Azerbaijan regained control over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2022. These cases not only highlighted the formal structure of the Moscow-led security bloc, but also increased disillusionment with the alliance and cast a shadow of doubt on its credibility.
The CSTO’s failure to defend collective defense is compounded by the lack of unity among its member states. According to a recent report by POLITICO, between 2018 and 2022, Belarus provided Azerbaijan with military aid and advanced weaponry, including state-of-the-art artillery targeting equipment and the Groza-S anti-drone mobile combat station. Despite being an ally within the CSTO, Belarusian weapons were used extensively in fighting with CSTO member Armenia during the 2020 Karabakh war. President Lukashenko’s public description of Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev as “our man” and his insistence that the CSTO is “wrong” to oppose him highlight the lack of real unity within the bloc and expose deep-rooted divisions.
If these events further damaged the bloc’s reputation, the CSTO’s inaction and the “concerted silence” of its Kremlin allies during Ukraine’s direct intervention on Russian territory dealt the CSTO a final blow, deepening Moscow’s isolation and dispelling the myth of the bloc’s collective defense obligations. Surprisingly, even Lukashenko, a close ally of Putin who remains an unwelcome figure in the West, did not join Russia’s defense. Instead, he deployed additional troops and armored vehicles to protect Belarus’ borders and even called for an end to the war, saying in an interview with a Russian journalist, “Let’s sit down at the negotiating table and end this quarrel.” This statement suggests that Belarus may be scaling back even its rhetorical support for Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The coordinated silence of the five Central Asian countries, theoretically aligned with Russia through the CSTO (Communist Relations Treaty), further speaks to Moscow's growing isolation. Unlike Russia, which has used the CSTO to maintain its regional dominance and protect its self-described “privileged interests” in the former Soviet bloc, Central Asian states have used the bloc to counter transnational threats such as terrorism and to receive Russian weapons and military training. The arrangement has allowed the Central Asian states to avoid possible Russian military intervention while keeping their questionable “friends” close by.
Russia’s stalemate in the Ukraine war and subsequent invasion of Kursk have opened new opportunities for Central Asia to strengthen regional cooperation and potential integration without relying on external powers, a scenario that seemed unlikely until recently.
For many years, one of the major obstacles to Central Asian integration has been Russia, which has consistently tried to block attempts to diversify trade and gas pipelines and sabotage the integration process among the region's five countries. However, the military operation in Ukraine forces Russia to redirect its military forces towards the latter. For example, Moscow has redeployed 1,500 soldiers from a Russian military base in Tajikistan to Ukraine. The withdrawal of several hundred Russian troops from the Armenian border does not directly affect Central Asia, but it signals the deterioration of the Kremlin's military and political influence and has significant implications for the security environment in the region.
This shift was also evident at the 6th Central Asian Summit in Astana on August 9, where a new determination to institutionalize economic and defense cooperation was announced. Uzbekistan's President Shavkat Mirziyoyev highlighted the geopolitical challenges facing the region, stating that “Central Asia, due to its geopolitical position, is experiencing the negative effects of a global crisis of confidence and escalating conflicts… and we are prisoners of sanctions policies,” a clear indication of the damaging effects of Russia's actions in Ukraine.
Amid these developments, Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev published an article in Kazakhstan's Pravda newspaper titled “Central Asian Renaissance: Towards Sustainable Development and Prosperity,” in which he called for coordination of regional security and defense policies among the five Central Asian republics. President Tokayev's vision of a more integrated and prosperous Central Asia free from Russia's overwhelming influence signals a shift in the region's geopolitical dynamics, potentially dramatically altering existing alliances and power structures.
These shifting dynamics present strategic opportunities for the West. Central Asia, at the heart of the Eurasian continent, offers a key opportunity for the United States to reassert its influence in the region, especially given the loss of credibility following the withdrawal from Afghanistan. A strongly integrated Central Asia aligns well with the goals of the U.S. Central Asia Strategy 2019-2025, which emphasizes strengthening the sovereignty and independence of Central Asian states through greater connectivity.
While forcing Central Asian states to choose sides may be counterproductive, Washington should strengthen engagement with Central Asian states, support their efforts to promote regional integration with neighboring external actors, and act as a single, unified voice in international political and economic relations.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Geopoliticalmonitor.com.
