In August 2026, PSCRP analytical materials largely focused on developments in the South Caucasus, Central Asia, and Russia.
The PSCRP team provides an overview of the year that has passed since the joint declaration was signed in Washington between the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia, potentially ending the long-lasting conflict between the countries. The authors accentuate the fact that this was the initiative of Baku, and that during this year, numerous economic opportunities were opened for cooperation between the two states, namely, “lifting restrictions on cargo shipments to Armenia, starting Azerbaijani petroleum exports across the border, and moving grain through territory that was, until recently, closed to Armenian trucks entirely.” Also, the establishment of the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity is underway. The authors claim that, to reach this stage of relationship, the conflict in Karabakh should have been resolved. They posit that Russian authorities might have regarded the Karabakh stalemate as leverage to influence and control the situation in the South Caucasus, and when this problem disappeared, the region might have become less controllable for Moscow.
In the same vein, the PSCRP team analyzes the role of the Middle Corridor, officially known as the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, in Azerbaijan’s contemporary efforts to strengthen its geopolitical position. The TITR is perceived as a potentially vital logistics route connecting East Asia and Europe that may solidify Baku’s role as the principal transit hub in cooperation with the regional states, the EU (interested in diversifying its energy supplies and building resilient trade routes), and the US (seeing the TITR as part of a broader open trade supporting strategy). However, achieving these goals remains contingent on developing and modernizing infrastructure at every operational level and on political stability in the regions concerned.
Gershon Kogan scrutinizes the recent political and cultural processes surrounding the choice of written scripts in the post-Soviet space, foregrounding the premise that an alphabet can be chosen as a “declared vector of civilization allegiance.” In 2024, the Common Turkic Alphabet project was approved by the Turkic Academy; in 2026, the Tajikistani Ministry of Education formed a working group to strengthen instruction in the traditional Perso-Arabic script. Placing these events within a broader framework, Kogan points to several mechanisms of influence employed by potential civilizational centers in the post-Soviet space. Turkey prefers to build infrastructure to make itself the center of the Turkic shared communicative space, including by means of spreading the Turkic Latin script. However, the latter contradicts the recent ideological turn towards re-Islamization and a bid for leadership in the Sunni Muslim world. Azerbaijan’s mechanisms accentuate agency and not a passive submission, positioning itself as the administrative hub of Turkic script integration; this also produces a reputation of an independently minded actor that is a more useful partner for outside actors than a satellite of another power center. Russia exploits the inertia of labor market dynamics, not directly pushing Cyrillic script but understanding its role for Central Asian labor migrants. Iran enjoys the strength of tradition and the abundance of heritage, which, however, is not translated into Tehran’s diplomatic leverage. Kogan concludes by predicting a “functionally stratified writing landscape”, where Latin script would be consolidated “as the medium of Turkic integration and digital modernity,” Cyrillic would persist wherever Russian-language labor markets and infrastructure remain most valuable, and Perso-Arabic script would be reserved for religion and classical literature. He concludes by noting that the decisive question would be which power “proves able to convert written heritage into a functioning instrument of statecraft.”
Providing a broader background to this issue, Gershon Kogan sheds light on Tehran’s alleged attempts to build a cultural, historical, or linguistic community with its neighboring countries. In 2026, the Iranian First Vice-President proposed building a “Union of Persian-Speaking Countries and Regions” with Tajikistan. This was not the first time such a proposal came to light; however, it was never implemented. To the impoverished linguistic club, the notion of a “Persianate world” might be juxtaposed, which would not exclude Turkey. However, since Tehran’s approach to Central Asia has remained non-ideological and strictly pragmatic, the IRI still has not organized its strategy around it. The author concludes that, “for four decades, the Islamic Republic constructed its foreign policy around what makes Iran part of a larger Islamic world. Confronted with a rising Turkic order it cannot out-compete on ideological terms, it may be discovering (…) what makes Iran a world of its own.”
Velvl Chernin overviews the transformation of Kazakhstan’s ethnic composition in the post-independence years, with significant growth of the share of an ethnically Kazakh population attributed to higher birth rates, emigration of Russian-speaking groups, and repatriation of ethnic Kazakhs from abroad, together with state-tailored measures aimed at the “re-Kazakhization” of northern regions. He specifically points to the ethnic Kazakh population in Russia’s regions bordering Kazakhstan – what he calls “Kazakh Irredenta,” with relatively large numbers of Kazakhs living in such regions as Astrakhan, Orenburg, Omsk, and Saratov oblasts, whose assimilation is prevented by the practice of Islam and physical differences with the Slavic population. He concludes that the Kazakhs in Russia remain a potentially significant source of ethnic Kazakh repatriation.
Vladimir Ze’ev Khanin provides a thorough overview of the development of Russian-Israeli relations since their restoration. He divides them into 3 main stages. The first, comprising Boris Yeltsin’s presidency and Vladimir Putin’s first presidential term, was rather restrained: Israeli actions were mostly confined to encouraging repatriation, arranging energy resource imports, and (attempts at) supporting Israeli business in Russia, and official visits were mostly tied to either urgent crisis management attempts or to the national elections. The second stage, comprising the 2nd and 3rd Putin’s presidential terms and his tenure as a Prime Minister, was characterized by noticeable improvement, growth in economic partnership, joint projects, expanding ties, and numerous mutual visits; it was also believed that Russia’s and Israel’s leaders had developed a “special personal relationship” based on mutual trust. De facto, it was rather a “tactical partnership based on overlapping interests.” The third stage started in February 2022, with the outbreak of full-scale military hostilities. Although Israel did not directly join the bloc of Western countries confronting Russia, all dimensions of cooperation have evidently declined, including not only economic ties but also shared narrative frameworks regarding World War II. This process was exacerbated after October 7th, when the Russian authorities sided with its long-standing strategic ally in Tehran and its proxies. Although no definite rupture has been in the bilateral ties, the author concludes that “Russian-Israeli relations today represent a combination of tactical clashes of interests on one level and fundamental uncertainty on another,” with the realistic “red lines” being seen by both sides as follows: “Israel does not participate directly in the war in Ukraine and does not provide it with large-scale military assistance, while Russia does not intervene in the Middle Eastern conflict on Iran’s side and does not directly assist the development of Iran’s nuclear program.”
Finally, Alexander Shpunt has prepared a monthly overview of several important academic publications concerning post-Soviet affairs.
In the upcoming months, the PSCR program will continue working on the analysis of the ongoing events in the post-Soviet space.