PSCRP-BESA Reports No 126 (April 21, 2025)
Astrophysicists define a black hole as an object whose gravity is so intense that nothing — not even light — can escape once it crosses the event horizon. Since the Kremlin launched its full‑scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia has begun acting like a geopolitical black hole in its own neighborhood. Facing Western sanctions and battlefield losses, Moscow is accelerating the draw on the two most dynamic economies in Central Asia — Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan — through energy deals, trade manipulation and political theatre. The closer these states drift, the harder (and costlier) it will be for them to break free.
Moscow tightens the energy umbilical cord
Russia has moved aggressively this spring to deepen energy integration with its two most important Central‑Asian neighbors. On 11 April Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak met a high‑level Kazakh delegation in Moscow to “increase transit deliveries of oil and gas” and expand joint projects from coal‑fired power stations to a possible Russian‑built nuclear plant.
Only three days earlier, officials from Moscow and Tashkent signed a package launching practical work on the long‑stalled Trans‑Afghan railway, envisioned as a 573‑kilometre corridor that would tie Uzbek trade routes ever closer to Russia’s rail network. And bilateral trade in gas is booming: Russian exports to Uzbekistan jumped 4.5‑fold in 2024, the countries confirmed this month.
Parallel‑import lifeline poses risks to Central Asian countries
These infrastructure deals are about more than commerce. Western sanctions have choked Russia’s access to sophisticated components, and the Kremlin increasingly relies on Central‑Asian partners to re‑export banned goods. The EU’s 16th sanctions package (February 2024) explicitly black‑listed 53 new firms — 34 of them outside Russia — for “supporting Russia’s military‑industrial complex or engaging in sanctions circumvention.”
Kazakh economists are already warning of the cost: in 2024 Kazakhstan’s trade deficit with Russia widened by 31% as imports of Russian goods surged, cementing what the Association of Kazakhstan Financiers calls “a long‑term trend.”
The Chinese factor—and why the stakes are existential for Moscow
Beijing has become Central Asia’s largest investor, and Chinese firms are negotiating everything from the Power of Siberia‑2 gas link to expanding LNG purchases. China has already overtaken Russia as the top trade partner for every Central‑Asian state except Tajikistan. As one Carnegie paper notes, Beijing’s pledge in 2022 to “resolutely support Kazakhstan’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity” signaled that China, not Russia, now guarantees the region’s security balance.
Foreign‑minister Sergei Lavrov’s unusually effusive visit to Almaty on 10 April (“Kazakhstan is our reliable ally”) underscored how urgently Moscow feels the need to out‑charm China. For Beijing, Central Asia is one more Belt‑and‑Road arena; for the Kremlin, retaining influence is a question of regime survival, providing both sanction‑busting channels and strategic depth against isolation, which followed the Russian offensive in Ukraine.
For the Kremlin, holding Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in its orbit is more than nostalgia. These states provide:
- Logistic corridors immune to Western naval power;
- Hard currency from transit fees;
- A covert route for sanctioned technology; and
- Political optics that Moscow is not internationally isolated.
Without them, Russia’s sanctions‑dodging ecosystem collapses.
A rare window for the West
The other gravitational force in the region is now the European Union. At the first‑ever EU–Central Asia summit in Samarkand (April 4), Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a €12 billion Global Gateway package to upgrade transport links (including the Trans‑Caspian Corridor), digital networks and renewable energy.
Less than three weeks earlier, the European Investment Bank signed a €200 million framework loan with Kazakhstan’s Development Bank to finance road upgrades and green power, the first EU‑backed money earmarked directly for the Trans‑Caspian route.
If Washington and Brussels mobilize capital and technology at scale — fast‑track renewable grids, finance container hubs at Aktau and Navoi, and anchor democratic governance reforms — Astana and Tashkent can pull free of Moscow’s orbit and emerge as prosperous, genuinely independent democracies.
Taken together, these initiatives offer Astana and Tashkent an exit trajectory: diversified markets, rule‑of‑law lending standards, and physical corridors that bypass the Russian chokepoints now weaponized by the Kremlin. The opportunity window may be brief, but it is wide — and the thrust it can deliver is powerful enough to counter Russia’s pull before the region crosses the point of no return.
Inside the event horizon: racism and extraction
Moscow’s treatment of Central‑Asian migrants offers a glimpse of life inside the black hole. In a 63‑page report released in March 2025, Human Rights Watch documents “rising xenophobic harassment and violence” against an estimated 3.3 million Central‑Asian workers, including arbitrary detentions and coerced military recruitment for the Ukraine front. “Every day we face discrimination, cruelty from law‑enforcement,” one Tajik migrant told HRW.
Russia’s economic model relies on these migrants while denying them rights — exporting poverty back to their home countries and entrenching patronage networks. The same pattern would apply to Kazakhstan’s and Uzbekistan’s domestic elites if Moscow tightens its grip: security guarantees for ruling circles in exchange for loyalty, cheap commodities, and political alignment with the Kremlin’s war effort.
Can the West counter the singularity?
Physics tells us that to escape a black hole you must apply a force greater than its gravitational pull before crossing the event horizon. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan today stand at a Lagrange point between two massive attractors. The Kremlin’s black‑hole strategy pulls with familiar Soviet‑era gravity; China offers capital with no political agenda at the moment, but will most definitely use the Central Asian countries as a springboard for possible confrontation with the West in the future. For the West, in geopolitical terms, it necessitates the following steps — if they want to pull the key Central Asian states into their orbit:
- Fast‑track Global Gateway disbursements — roads, dry ports, and green grids that put euros and dollars into local pay‑cheques this year, not in 2030.
- Link money to transparency: procurement portals, independent courts and civil‑society participation that inoculate big projects against the rent‑seeking Russia thrives on.
- Enforce export‑control intelligence sharing with Kazakh and Uzbek customs, banking supervisors and freight forwarders.
- Signal political stakes: high‑level visits, parliamentary partnerships and scholarships that anchor the next generation away from Russian narratives.
Black holes grow by feeding on nearby matter; the more they consume, the stronger their pull. Russia’s war has turned it into exactly that sort of celestial predator — desperate for resources, willing to twist gravity to keep its neighbors in thrall. Yet while astrophysical black holes are inescapable, geopolitical ones are not. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan can still fire their thrusters — Western capital, rule-of-law reforms, and diversified trade routes — and set a trajectory toward genuine sovereignty and prosperity. Whether Brussels, Washington and like‑minded partners provide the necessary thrust will decide if Central Asia spirals inward into eternal darkness, or breaks free into open space.
PSCRP team