Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

In our 26 September issue we reported on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 20 September visit to Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia.  We said the visit had “confirmed Russia’s intensifying interest in the region ahead of the Western pullout from Afghanistan in 2014”.  We also noted that Russia’s split with Uzbekistan, which has left the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and is looking to strengthen relations with the United States, was also confirmed.  We have more on this.

Two key agreements were signed during Putin’s visit to Kyrgyzstan.  The first was for extending the term of Russia’s 201st division military base and the second was for the developing of a major hydroelectric project.  At the same time, Kyrgyzstan’s President Almazbek Atambayev confirmed that the US air base at Manas would close in 2014.  Russia has an air base at Kant, a torpedo-testing centre at Issyk-Kul, a naval communications centre, and a seismic centre operated by Russia’s Strategic Missile Troops.  In 2017, a new Russian-Kyrgyz military base will open in Osh.

The heavyweight Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta commented on 24 September: “Russia’s policy in Central Asia is gradually evolving.  The intertwining of economic decisions and military agreements...clearly reflects the Russian Federation’s stepped up activity in Central Asia.  The configuration of Moscow-Bishkek-Dushanbe [Russia-Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan] is taking on a clear form.”

But these moves stirred up anti-Russia passions in Uzbekistan, where there has been talk of a Russian conspiracy to control the waters of Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are upstream of Uzbekistan) and to use this control to punish Uzbekistan for leaving the CSTO.  Uzbekistan’s President Islom Karimov even raised the spectre of water wars, and at the recent UN General Assembly Uzbekistan’s foreign minister raised the issue of Kyrgyzstan’s hydroelectric projects.

Uzbekistan’s fears are growing as Russia steps up its rearming of Kyrgyzstan.  On 2 October, the chief of Russia’s General Staff, General Valeriy Gerasimov, made public a list of armaments that would be supplied to Kyrgyzstan under a $1bn military aid package.  Russia has said the arms are part of the preparations for Nato’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014, but Kyrgyzstan does not have a border with Afghanistan and the main motive for rearming the country is seen to be a Russian desire to counter Uzbekistan’s drift away from Moscow.

Another Russian motive for arming Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan is the desire to pre-empt any US attempt to use surplus arms from Afghanistan as a means of gaining influence in Central Asia after the Nato pullout.  A Russian government source was quoted by Kommersant as saying: “American instructors and engineers might have come along with the US equipment.  The US influence might have inevitably increased in the region.  Now an obstacle has been put in this path.”

Unfortunately for Russia, it is feared that Uzbekistan (which already has the strongest army in the region) is likely to receive modern Nato equipment following the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

One well-placed Russian source says: “The military aid to Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan is a signal to Tashkent [Uzbekistan] that a path chosen by it towards military rapprochement with the US will be met with punishment.”  In support of this, Kyrgyz troops are being redeployed from the Chinese border to the south along the borders with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan – and there has been an increase in Russian border officers deployed in Osh near the Uzbek border.  Kyrgyzstan is also talking to Russia about building a new CSTO military base in either Osh or Batken and a new Russian base in Osh.