The PSCRP reports in February 2025, have covered the recent political developments in Central Asia, South Caucasus, and Russia.
Andrei Kazantsev-Vaisman provides an analysis of Turkmenistan’s current foreign policy dilemmas. He observes a “gradual realignment of Turkmenistan’s foreign policy towards the Iran-Russia-China axis,” stemming from the repayment of Chinese loans for gas infrastructure, the increasing influence of Russia (especially after 2022), and the decline in the U.S. influence in the aftermath of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan. Internal factors, such as strengthening authoritarianism and ideological convergence with Iran and Afghanistan, also add to this shift from neutrality. Although Iran is not interested in Turkmenistan’s resources and military infrastructure, for Tehran, it is important to safeguard Ashgabat’s non-engagement with Israel. Now, “Turkmenistan still seeks to balance its relations by exploring Western energy projects such as the Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline.” This project, attractive for Ashgabat itself, “would undermine Russia’s and Iran’s ambitions in the European energy market while also limiting China’s ability to monopolize Central Asian gas supplies.” However, “engaging with Turkmenistan carries significant reputational risks for Western actors, given its highly authoritarian domestic policies,” and it is only under certain circumstances that this engagement may materialize.
Ze’ev (Vladimir) Khanin and Alex Grinberg provide practical recommendations on effectively engaging Azerbaijan “in Trump’s regional plans and in Israel’s interests,” as a direct continuation of their publication that appeared here in January. They re-summarize the key indicators of Azerbaijan’s special role for Israel (the country’s long-standing partnership with the Jewish state in the spheres of energy security, defense imports, and countering Iran, and its being the only Israel’s strategic partner in the Muslim world that “not only maintained but even intensified its partnership with Israel,” thus facilitating Israel’s engagement with the Muslim world). The authors assume that Azerbaijan’s capabilities may be effectively leveraged, in the framework of Washington’s foreign policy approaches, to set the stage for the U.S.-Russia normalization, to maximize pressure on Iran, and to integrate Israel into the “Greater Middle East” through Saudi-Israeli normalization and the expansion of the Abraham Accords. Section 907, a legislative amendment that, since 1992, inadequately discriminates against Azerbaijan compared to other post-Soviet republics in terms of receiving American assistance, should be repealed to eliminate the formal obstacles to the development of U.S.-Azerbaijan relations. Azerbaijan should be included in the “Abraham Accords Club,” thus receiving all the benefits entailed by this “membership,” sharing its experience with the Abraham Fund, with the Azerbaijani-Emirati partnership providing a practical model for multilateral regional cooperation. In terms of the rebuilding of Gaza, “Washington may turn to Baku with a proposal to participate on a humanitarian basis, acting as a free supplier of energy resources needed for reconstruction efforts and for the needs of the Palestinian population.” Also, the authors propose “to establish a joint fund with the participation of Azerbaijan, the UAE, and ideally Turkey” to restore and preserve the destructed religious monuments in the Middle East, so as to “lay the groundwork for an international interfaith tourism program.”
Alexander Shpunt provides a succinct overviewof the “history and geopolitical context” behind the Zangezur Corridor project. The idea, being rooted in the Soviet times, envisaged, back then, “connecting the main territory of Azerbaijan with the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic through the construction of a railway through the Zangezur region of Armenia,” that would reduce traveling from Azerbaijan to Nakhchivan from 700 km through Iran to 50 km directly. In the last two years, the “main dimension of the geopolitical game around the Zangezur Corridor has become the pipeline logistics of hydrocarbons.” After 2022, the potential instability of hydrocarbon supplies through the Ukrainian territory, as well as the toxicity of Russian oil and gas for EU consumers, have increased Europe’s demand for diversification of hydrocarbon supply routes. All the supply routes of Azerbaijani oil run through Georgian or Russian territories, and, with Georgia swinging towards strengthening ties with Moscow, the advantages of a pipeline bypassing both these countries have increased. For Turkey, the Zangezur route is equally a means to secure the supply of hydrocarbons that would bypass the unpredictable Georgia, as well as reduce dependence on the toxic Russia and the turbulent Syria. Baku itself might, accordingly, turn into a key link ensuring Ankara’s economic security. The biggest looser of the Zangezur option seems to be Russia: Georgia, which Russia attempts to control, “ceases to be a monopoly on the non-Russian route for transporting hydrocarbons,” the transit lever of influence over Azerbaijan gets equally lost, and the influence of Turkey, Russia’s longstanding geopolitical rival, significantly increases in the region. Simultaneously, the route through Zangezur would be unfavorable for Tehran.
Gela Vasadze investigates the different expectations from Trump’s presidency in the US in the three South Caucasian states. He starts with Georgia whose political leadership, since Russia’s large-scale aggression against Ukraine, has focused on maintaining power by electoral fraud, protest suppression, and a deliberate alienation from the former partners in the West. This was done in the framework of the country’s bet on Trump’s victory: now, the authorities in Tbilisi have the opportunity to negotiate with the new Washington administration on the basis of ideological alignment. However, Vasadze contends that the future of Georgia’s leadership largely depends on Trump’s negotiations with Moscow, Ankara, and Beijing. Armenian leadership now might use the opportunity to abandon the illusory hopes of military revanche upon Azerbaijan and reach a compromise with the latter. Thus, Armenia’s goals in relations with the U.S. leadership are to maintain the status quo and to secure that Baku won’t resort to force. Azerbaijan has to resist the potential influence of Russia and Iran and expects that the U.S. supports regional projects solidifying Baku’s mid-tier power status. In short, “Tbilisi seeks Trump’s recognition of its government as an ideological ally; Yerevan hopes for security assurances and the preservation of the status quo; and Baku anticipates US backing for its regional ambitions.”
Dor Shabashewitz sheds light on the controversial issue of cooperation between indigenous secessionist movements in Russia. He highlights the radicalization of these movements’ demands after the start of the full-scale war against Ukraine: if before 2021-2022, they have rarely voiced radical independence aspirations, after 2022, indigenous movements significantly sharpened their appeals. The exampling case may be the one of the Congress of the Oirat-Kalmyk People which was founded in 2015 and has never discussed independence “as a serious option.” However, after taking a “hard line against the invasion of Ukraine,” speaking out “against the participation of Kalmyk soldiers in the invading force,” and forced emigration, the Congress signed a provisional declaration of independence – thus signaling a “shift from autonomism to secessionism.” The latter shift “culminated in the creation of umbrella organizations and platforms uniting secessionists from various regions of Russia,” most notably, the Free Nations League and the Free Nations of Post-Russia Forum. The latter was founded by the Ukrainian entrepreneur Oleh Mahaletsky in May 2022, and it is a platform for semi-regular conferences where ethnic activists and politicians “discuss their visions of how Russia’s territory should be divided, governed, and transformed after a hypothetical dissolution.” Despite its ability to attract media attention and funding, the Forum often faces criticism for giving a platform to “fringe movements with unrealistic demands, extreme rhetoric, and no measurable legitimacy,” which might undermine “the credibility of the more established independence movements.” The Free Nations League was also founded in May 2022, it is “a registered NGO with a written charter, well-defined membership criteria, and a complex, hierarchical internal structure,” consisting mostly of pre-existing ethnic movements as collective members. Both entities engage in diplomacy on various levels, with the League preferring to talk directly to policymakers and not to symbolic “big figures.” Anyway, “most secessionists agree that their movements do not have the means to make their regions independent at present,” so they just wait and prepare for the moment of “Russia’s dissolution.” The author concludes that, regardless of the actual feasibility of the organizations’ hopes, the “nascent feeling of solidarity between politically active and nationally conscious members of various ethnic minorities may have a lasting influence on the ethnopolitics of Northern Eurasia.”
Last but not least, in February, PSCRP launched a “program of monthly monitoring of analytical publications from the world’s leading universities and think tanks, which in one way or another affect the study of political processes in the former USSR.” The main criterion for selecting the research outputs is “its usefulness in shaping the current political course of Israel and Israeli policy towards countries that have emerged in this geopolitical space.” This month’s critical monitoring of the five most recent analytical publications may be read following this link.
The PSCR program at the BESA Center is further continuing its mission of analyzing the most important sociopolitical developments in the post-Soviet region. Stay tuned.