International Relations
Interview
Florence Gaub on Navigating a Renewed Conflict in the Middle East – INTERVIEW
3 October 2024
27 September 2022
With conflicts breaking out in the region of Central Asia, one unintended consequence of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is the destabilisation of post-Soviet space.
At the end of September, the Secretary of the Security Council of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan, Marat Imankulov, announced that the country’s leadership had initiated the exclusion of neighbouring Tajikistan from the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), a military alliance that includes Russia, Armenia, Belarus and Kazakhstan in addition to the two countries.
The move comes after several weeks of bloody border conflicts between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Of course, for Europeans, these hostilities are overshadowed by the war in Ukraine; however, when I saw a video showing the aftermath of the shelling of the regional centre of Batkent in Kyrgyzstan — a cloud of smoke over residential areas — I was immediately reminded of how the same cloud rose over homes after the rocket attack on Lviv.