The Central Asian republics are cultivating new alliances

By Joanna Lillis

Russia’s war in Ukraine has rattled its traditional allies in post-Soviet Central Asia. These countries are bound to Moscow by formal ties of politics, economics and energy supply, as well as informal ties of family, culture and language, and they have looked askance at Russia’s invasion of another ex-Soviet neighbour. Yet even as they seek alternative alliances, in some ways they are becoming even more tightly entangled with their former colonial master.