Russian rhetoric toward central Asia grows increasingly hostile, reminiscent of the language used toward Ukraine before its invasion
The hostile rhetoric and actions from Russia have eroded trust and relations between Russia and Central Asian countries, including Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine marked a change in Russian public and media figures’ rhetoric toward Central Asia. They turned the rare hostile statement into regular lines of attack from the Kremlin’s propaganda machine. A month after the invasion, another Duma deputy, Sergei Savostyanov, offered to expand the ongoing “denazification and demilitarization operation” in Ukraine to include Kazakhstan, among other post-Soviet states.
A month after this incident, Russian television host and husband of the central propaganda figure Margarita Simonyan, Tegran Keosyan, accused Kazakhstan of “ungratefulness” and threatened the country, calling for it “to look at Ukraine” in response to the country’s decision to cancel the annual parade commemorating the Soviet Union’s victory in the World War II.
Even high-level Russian officials have made hostile statements toward Central Asia, questioning their sovereignty and statehood. In August 2022, Russia’s former president and deputy chair of the Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, designated Kazakhstan as an “artificial state” built on the territory gifted by Russia. Medvedev further blamed Astana for implementing policies that “could be classified as genocide of [ethnic] Russians”.
[Edit typo.]
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