In September 2026, the PSCRP publications dealt mostly with the issues of geopolitical (re)alignments (in the Baltics and the South Caucasus) and the electoral process (in Russia and Kazakhstan).
The material prepared by several PSCRP team authors critically assesses[1] the Baltic states’ defense posture. The authors question the alignment between these countries’ confrontational geopolitical stance and their actual military capabilities, especially in light of the “anticipation of reduced US involvement” regarding NATO’s collective security guarantees and uncertainty about whether “a genuine crisis would produce a fast, unified NATO response.” The material’s central question is “on whose confidence” what the authors call the Baltic states’ “public defiance” is resting, taking into account the present “combination of loud provocation, incomplete fortification, and an American security guarantee that its own president describes as a matter of ‘definition’.”
Another material prepared by the PSCRP authors analyzes the Armenian government’s efforts to involve Central Asian states in the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are said to have expressed cautious interest, considering potential economic benefits from the route and from being among the project’s shareholders. However, they still refrain from making any explicit statements, not willing to estrange and antagonize Russia and Iran, both of which oppose the TRIPP, and might need economic security guarantees to proceed with their participation.
Another PSCRP authors’ material published last month delves into the growing isolation of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the South Caucasus and Central Asia, with the airspace of several regional countries now closed to aircraft operated by Iranian airlines. The transport isolation is caused mostly by the recent US Treasury Department’s sanctions package against Tehran’s aviation sector. However, Armenian authorities remain among those that continue to cooperate with the IRI, including by establishing new agreements that cover, inter alia, a railway construction project and information exchange on goods and vehicles moving through the two countries under the “Facilitated Customs Corridor.”
Alexander Shpunt presents a thorough analysis of the outcomes of the recent Russian State Duma elections, including “the correlation of party forces, continuity of leadership, personnel movements, changes in the organizational structure of committees, and mechanisms for coordinating key appointments.” He underlines the role of personnel continuity, manifested in “the preservation of a substantial portion of experienced leaders and targeted movements of individual deputies to new areas”, and structural changes, including the division of the previous committee on state construction and legislation and the creation of a new committee on digital development and artificial intelligence. Overall, the election outcomes can be characterized as “preservation of key parliamentary leadership, reproduction of a substantial portion of the experienced committee leadership corps, redistribution of individual specialized positions between factions, creation of new specialized structures, and the inclusion of new personnel in the already existing parliamentary-party system.”
Andrei Kazantsev-Vaisman analyzes, in his two subsequent papers, the recent Kurultai elections in Kazakhstan. First, he overviews the societal, institutional, and political preconditions to these elections. Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, a professional diplomat and former UN Under-Secretary-General, became Kazakhstan’s president when the country was characterized by multi-vector foreign policy, economic modernization, and perceived inequality in resource distribution. The need for controlled political modernization under both domestic and external pressure led to gradually forging a “more diversified, innovative and eventually post-industrial model of development,” including replacing the two-chamber parliament with a more compact, single-chamber body. The new Kurultai attempts to “simplify the institutional structure of representation while simultaneously strengthening the political role of parties.” The election results demonstrated the party system’s reorganization. “Adilet,” the party of modernization and “state-centered developmental centrism,” which incorporated the former “party of power,” got an overwhelming majority of the seats. The other parties now represented in the Kurultai are the agrarian and national-conservative “Auyl,” technocratic and entrepreneurial “Respublica,” the established business party “Ak Zhol,” and social-democrats. Ex-Communists and the Greens have not reached the 5-percent electoral threshold.
Also, the traditional monthly monitoring of analytical publications was prepared, this time to include not only academic papers but also a course syllabus and an MA thesis.
The PSCRP continues its work of scrutinizing the socioeconomic and political processes in the post-Soviet area.