Central Asian countries are subtly distancing themselves from Russia

ON CITY STREETS, say visitors to Almaty in Kazakhstan, to Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan and to Tashkent in Uzbekistan, a change in the ethnic mix makes it feel surreally as if the Soviet Union has been reconstituted. Since Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, invaded Ukraine in February, huge numbers of Russians have fled, many ending up in the former Soviet states of Central Asia.

The early incomers were professionals and protesters: liberal types who quickly understood the nature of the catastrophe Mr Putin had wrought upon his own country as well as upon Ukraine. More recently have come draft-dodgers. Mr Putin announced a mobilisation of more than 300,000 Russian men last month. Since then, at least 100,000 have fled to these three countries alone.

At the apogee of the Soviet Union, ethnic Russians, who made up a big chunk of Central Asia’s urban population, were the imperial overlords. Even since independence, citizens of Central Asian states coming as migrant workers to Russia have suffered discrimination, been the butt of casual racism and condemned to the most menial jobs. The boot is now on the other foot, but Central Asians are declining to employ it against the Russian posterior. Many Russians declare amazement at the welcome given to them (though tensions are now rising as some of the newcomers default to their usual arrogance).

The warmth between ordinary people is the flip side of strained official relations between Central Asia and Mr Putin. The region’s leaders are appalled at his violence towards Ukraine. It has, says Kate Mallinson of Prism Political Risk Management in London, laid out in plain sight Russia’s unreconstructed imperial impulse, with clear risks for Central Asia.

The region’s governments have refused to endorse either the invasion or Russia’s annexation of eastern Ukrainian provinces. They will not return draft-dodgers. And even though in January, under the terms of a mutual-security pact, Mr Putin sent troops to Kazakhstan to help counter an attempted putsch, no debt of gratitude exists. The idea that Kazakhstan should “eternally serve and bow down at the feet of Russia” is “far from reality”, Kassym-Zhomart Tokayev, the president, told Russian television.

The protocols and body language of meetings between Mr Putin and Central Asian leaders are also revealing. At a gathering last month in Uzbekistan, the Russian president, notorious for keeping world leaders waiting, stood twiddling his thumbs for President Sadyr Japarov of Kyrgyzstan, a small, poor country where Russia is used to calling the shots. At a Russia-Central Asia summit hosted by Kazakhstan last week, Mr Tokayev conspicuously failed to have a one-on-one meeting with Mr Putin.

Cumulatively, these signs and slights point to Russia’s waning influence in Central Asia. But make no mistake: this is no break. Historical ties between the countries run deep. Central Asian elites are intertwined with those of Russia. Older members grew up in the Soviet Union. Younger ones are at home clubbing in Moscow. Economic ties are crucial. Central Asia relies on remittances from migrant workers in Russia, as well as imports of sugar and wheat. One of the world’s biggest pipelines carries most of Kazakhstan’s oil to a Russian port on the Black Sea. Russia employs the ability to close it at will. Its security services remain powerful in the region.

And there is no escaping geography. Kazakhstan’s 7,644km border (4,750-mile) with Russia is second in length only to Canada’s with America. Towns with big populations of ethnic Russians on Kazakhstan’s side offer plenty of scope for Mr Putin to stir up trouble by playing on ethnic grievances, as he did for years in eastern Ukraine.

Yet even diminished influence, way short of a break, still creates a vacuum. It is being filled in part by China. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan are also keen to move closer to Turkey and the West—all part of what Kazakhstan calls a “multi-vector” approach to balance between competing powers. For now, the region is just about managing its high-wire act with Russia. On the other hand, concern is growing that Mr Putin will further escalate his war in Ukraine with greater targeting of civilians or, worst of all, the use of nuclear weapons. Nargis Kassenova of Harvard University argues that would cross a line for Central Asia’s leaders—Kazakhstan, for instance, has nuclear disarmament at the core of its foreign policy. A perilous rupture would then surely follow.■

Read more from Banyan, our columnist on Asia:
The shameful statelessness of South-East Asia’s sea nomads (Oct 13th)
What Pacific island states make of the great-power contest over them (Oct 6th)
India’s government is exporting its Hindu nationalism (Sep 29th)