By Sultan Musayev | 2026-05-22

At a late-April Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Kyrgyzstan, Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov put Central Asia on notice: military partnerships with outside powers are "unacceptable" to Moscow.

Analysts say the statement was triggered by Uzbekistan, where President Shavkat Mirziyoyev had just received a briefing on deepening military cooperation with Turkey. Mirziyoyev's office posted a statement about strengthening defense ties and outlining future joint plans.

Belousov also cited "risks that militants from crisis areas will infiltrate neighboring countries," naming neither the militants nor their origin. Regional outlet Fergana linked the two statements directly: the terrorism framing, it argued, is political cover for something else entirely.

Terrorism as political cover

"When Moscow says that there are 'risks that militants will infiltrate' or 'the military presence of extraregional powers is unacceptable,' it’s talking primarily about attempts by the region's states to develop closer ties with the United States, European countries, Turkey or China in the areas of security, logistics and military infrastructure," Fergana reported on April 29.

The outlet concluded that Belousov was reinforcing Moscow's claim that it has the right to determine who Central Asian states can partner with on security and on what terms. Any joint training, weapons transit or transport infrastructure involving outside players gets labeled a threat, even when the goal is resilience and diversified risk.

Russia, meanwhile, cannot offer alternatives of comparable scale or quality.

The CSTO as leverage, not protection

Kazakh observers took the same view.

Arman Shurayev, a civic leader and former manager of Khabar and KTK, the two largest Kazakh television channels, said Moscow is "allergic" to any cooperation between Astana and the West -- military or economic.

Kazakhstan's membership in Russian-led bodies, including the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), is a strategic mistake, Shurayev told Kontur. Kazakhstan should have left them long ago.

"The CSTO is not Russia's protection from any imaginary enemies," Shurayev said. "It's Russia's instrument of influence over the Central Asian states and the accomplishment of its imperial ambitions."

He argued the bloc has delivered no real security value and has only generated disillusionment among its members. Russia, mired in Ukraine and bleeding resources, is no longer a credible guarantor of anything, he said. If genuine military threats emerge, Central Asia can look instead to Turkic-speaking allies such as Azerbaijan and Turkey.

'Our region needs to work on its own security'

Some analysts go further. They do not rule out the possibility that Central Asian states -- Kazakhstan above all, which shares the world's longest land border with Russia -- could face Russian aggression if they pursue independent policy decisions Moscow opposes, as Ukraine did.

Dosym Satpayev, a political analyst and director of Almaty-based Risk Assessment Group, said Russia's standing in global geopolitics has deteriorated rapidly. It has lost key allies -- Syria, Venezuela -- and Iran may follow.

Russia cannot afford to lose Central Asia too, Satpayev told Kontur, and that calculus makes the region's strategic environment more dangerous, not less.

"Our region needs to work on its own security like never before: it needs to strengthen the army, shore up defense and bolster internal stability outside frameworks of cooperation with Russia," Satpayev said.

At the same time, Central Asian states must engage other interested powers to maintain a functioning balance in regional security, he added.

"The world has changed. It will no longer be like it once was," Satpayev said.