CAPS Unlock Podcast

This week, we return to the political soap opera unfolding in Kyrgyzstan in the wake of the February removal of security chief Kamchybek Tashiyev.

The pressure on Tashiyev’s family continues to mount. His brother, Shairbek, who surrendered his parliamentary mandate after a first police interrogation earlier in March, has now been called back in for a second round of questioning.

His son, Tai-Muras, is facing a subtler social media campaign highlighting the $6 million profit made by his company between 2020 and 2025, a figure that raises pointed questions, given that President Sadyr Japarov was publicly praising Tai-Muras’ business acumen as recently as 2024.

Meanwhile, the former National Bank chairman Melis Turgunbayev has been drawn into the investigation into state oil and gas company Kyrgyzneftegaz, briefly detained and now released, but still facing possible prosecution.

But the story has another side: the acquittal of the so-called Kempir-Abad defendants, activists and politicians arrested in 2022 for opposing a controversial border deal with Uzbekistan, has now been upheld on appeal. And the journalist Makhabat Tazhibek kyzy of investigative outlet Temirov Live has been released from pre-trial detention.

Thaw or managed transition? We discuss.

We then turn to Kazakhstan, where popular YouTube channel Airan, with its nearly 1.2 million subscribers, has abruptly shut down. The explanation given was carefully, conspicuously vague. We examine what its closure says about the structural impossibility of independent media in Kazakhstan, against a backdrop of several recent journalist arrests.

For our interview this week, we spoke with Demir Kabylbayev, senior analyst and energy sector lead at the Eurasian Development Bank, and lead author of a new report on Central Asia’s power sector. We discussed the region’s acute energy challenge: surging demand, ageing Soviet-era infrastructure, and the difficult path toward renewables, and why a pragmatic middle path may be the only realistic option.

Link

Power Sector of Central Asia: Modernization and Energy Transition - https://eabr.org/en/analytics/special-reports/power-sector-of-central-asia-modernization-and-energy-transition/

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This week’s episode of the CAPS Unlock podcast departs from the usual format for a single in-depth conversation with journalist Joanna Lillis, whose new book Silk Mirage: Through the Looking Glass in Uzbekistan draws on more than two decades of reporting to examine the country’s evolution since independence.

Lillis traces Uzbekistan’s trajectory from the repressive system built under Islam Karimov to the more open but still contradictory era of Shavkat Mirziyoyev. Rather than a conventional political history, the book is constructed through individual stories, with former political prisoners, exiles, activists, and artists, and allows the lived experience of the system to take precedence over official narratives.

A central theme of the discussion is the question of historical reckoning. Lillis argues that Uzbekistan’s failure to confront episodes such as the Andijan massacre continues to shape both public life and private memory. Without a clear account of past abuses, she suggests, reforms risk resting on unstable foundations, with old practices, whether in the justice system or restrictions on speech, reappearing in new forms.

The conversation also examines the limits of reform. While the eradication of state-sponsored forced labour in the cotton sector stands out as a genuine success, deeper structural issues in agriculture and governance remain unresolved. More broadly, Lillis points to a pattern of selective liberalisation: greater openness in some areas paired with persistent red lines in politics, media, and civic life.

Attention turns to culture and society, where change is more dynamic. Uzbekistan today displays a complex mix of liberalising and conservative currents, from the rise of religious influencers to a still-cautious creative sector shaped by residual fear and self-censorship. At the same time, the state’s effort to promote a polished international image through culture and heritage sits uneasily alongside continued repression at home.

Across the discussion runs a consistent argument: that Uzbekistan’s future development, economic as much as political, depends not only on reform, but on a more honest engagement with its past.

Links

Silk Mirage: Through the Looking Glass in Uzbekistan - https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/silk-mirage-9781350292468/

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In this week’s very packed episode of the CAPS Unlock podcast we cover a busy news week across two countries, and speak with a researcher whose work offers a fascinating lens on how Central Asian states construct national identity through their museums.

We begin with Kazakhstan, where citizens went to the polls to approve a new constitution, the country’s third since independence. With official figures showing turnout of around 73 percent and 87 percent support for the new document, we walk through the key changes: the merger of Kazakhstan’s two chambers of parliament into a single body called the Kurultai, the creation of a new vice-presidential role, and the establishment of a new advisory institution called the People’s Council. We also reflect on what the process itself revealed; the speed at which the new document was adopted, questions around independent observation, and the broader project of national myth-making that a new constitutional holiday on March 15 represents.

Then we turn to Kyrgyzstan, where what initially looked like a clean break between President Sadyr Japarov and his longtime ally and former security chief Kamchybek Tashiyev is becoming considerably more complicated. The state tax service has published an investigation on YouTube alleging that a network of companies connected to Tashiyev’s relatives systematically siphoned profits from the state oil company Kyrgyzneftegaz over five years, with losses estimated at over $45 million. Meanwhile, Tashiyev’s brother, Shairbek, has resigned from parliament (at least seven MPs linked to Tashiyev’s orbit have resigned their seats in recent weeks). We discuss what this escalation means for Kyrgyzstan’s political landscape and what it may portend for the future.

Finally, in our interview segment, we speak with Katarzyna Jarosz, a researcher and author of Museums in Central Asia and the Construction of National Narratives (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025). Katarzyna takes us through what museums in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan reveal about how these states understand, and curate, their own pasts, and offers practical tips for visitors on how to read a Central Asian museum.

Links:

Katarzyna Jarosz, Museums in Central Asia and the Construction of National Narratives (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025) — https://www.springerprofessional.de/en/museums-in-central-asia-and-the-construction-of-national-narrati/51409240

The State Tax Service of Kyrgyzstan YouTube investigation into Kyrgyzneftegaz -

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In this episode of the CAPS Unlock podcast, we speak with Eldaniz Gusseinov, head of research at Nightingale Int., about what the war between the United States, Israel and Iran could mean for Central Asia.

Rather than dwelling on battlefield events, the conversation looks at the wider regional consequences of the conflict, particularly for trade routes, strategic connectivity and Central Asia’s ability to balance between larger powers. Gusseinov argues that the immediate effect on the region is less direct than many assume. The more important question lies in the ripple effects: how the war reshapes relations among Iran, Russia, China, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and how those shifts then feed back into Central Asia.

He outlines three broad trends to watch. First, if the Iranian regime survives, Tehran may move closer to Moscow, giving Russia a stronger role in the corridors that run south through Iran and Afghanistan. Second, China may place greater weight on Central Asia as a stable neighbour and as a hedge against vulnerable maritime choke points and instability across the wider Asian space. Third, Afghanistan, squeezed by conflict with Pakistan and by disruptions to its access through Iran, may seek deeper integration with Central Asia and Russia via northern routes.

The discussion also examines whether prolonged instability in Iran would damage Central Asia’s hopes of reaching the Indian Ocean, and whether alternatives such as Afghanistan, Pakistan or even a narrower focus on Afghanistan as a market might become more realistic. Gusseinov is sceptical of easy answers, arguing that geography still bites, infrastructure remains weak, and sanctions continue to impose a structural constraint.

At the broadest level, the episode asks whether this war could narrow the space for Central Asia’s multi-vector diplomacy. Gusseinov’s answer is cautious. In the short term, yes, but over time, the region may still find new routes, new bargains and new ways to adapt.

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Operation Epic Fury has forced every government in Central Asia to signal where it stands. And just as importantly, how carefully it intends to stand there.

We began this week’s CAPS Unlock podcast with the U.S.–Israeli military campaign against Iran and the varied responses across the five Central Asian republics. Tajikistan, the region’s only Persian-speaking state, issued unusually warm condolences toward Tehran, though notably via its embassy rather than the presidential press service. Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan adopted more conventional diplomatic language, invoking dialogue and the UN Charter. Kazakhstan expressed solidarity with Jordan, Qatar and the UAE following Iranian retaliatory strikes and moved quickly to secure its nationals in Iran, including dozens of workers at a joint mining venture. Turkmenistan, which shares a long border with Iran, has remained publicly silent, a silence that reflects both exposure and constraint.

We then turn to Russia’s decision to designate the Kazakhstan-focused outlet Respublika as a “foreign agent.” The move marks the first time Moscow has applied its domestic political labeling system to a media project centered on Kazakhstan. We discuss what this could mean in practice: whether Russia is testing Astana’s willingness to cooperate, whether this signals a broader attempt to extend Russian legal norms into the post-Soviet space, and how such designations may complicate media operations across borders.

In this week’s interview, we speak with UK-based analyst Ora Lazic about her recent business position paper prepared ahead of the B5+1 meeting in Bishkek. Lazic challenges the idea of a critical minerals “gold rush.” While strategically important, the sector remains economically modest. She argues that Central Asia’s real task is institutional: modernising geological data, strengthening regulatory stability, building infrastructure along the Middle Corridor, and coordinating government-backed financing. If supply chain diversification away from China is serious, it will require sustained structural reform, not rhetoric.

LINKS

Critical Mineral Resources: Expanding Cooperation: Central Asia–United States Business Dialogues - https://www.cipe.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Critical-Mineral-Resources_B51-2026_en.pdf

Respublika report on its inclusion in Russia’s list of “foreign agents” - https://respublika.kz.media/archives/157073

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This week’s edition of the CAPS Unlock podcast moves across three very different but interconnected storylines shaping Central Asia’s political and economic trajectory.

We begin with the European Union’s stalled 20th sanctions package against Russia and, most relevantly for us, the likely inclusion of Kyrgyzstan. Although Hungary and Slovakia blocked the package for now, Kyrgyzstan had been earmarked under the EU’s new anti-circumvention mechanism. The concern is clear: a dramatic surge in re-exports of dual-use goods to Russia, alongside the rapid expansion of Kyrgyzstan’s licensed crypto sector. Since 2022, the country has built a regulatory framework for virtual asset service providers, issuing roughly 100 licenses and facilitating billions of dollars in transactions. Western authorities increasingly suspect that some of this infrastructure has enabled sanctions evasion. Even if sanctions do not materialise immediately, the reputational implications for Kyrgyzstan’s investment climate are significant.

We then turn to Turkmenistan, where two carefully timed diplomatic signals raise larger geopolitical questions. Former president (and current National Leader) Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov travelled to Florida, offering familiar pitches for investment, including renewed references to the long-delayed TAPI pipeline. Separately, it has been reported that President Serdar Berdymukhamedov is preparing a visit to Brussels, where energy cooperation and the long-frozen EU–Turkmen Partnership and Cooperation Agreement are expected to feature prominently. With Europe searching for diversification away from Russian energy, and Washington recalibrating its posture toward Iran, Turkmenistan’s strategic positioning merits close attention.

Finally, we speak with CAPS Unlock senior research fellow Azimzhan Khitakhunov about new research on Kazakhstan’s renewable sector. While clean energy accounts for roughly 7 percent of electricity generation, it remains concentrated in large installations. The report, which will be published on the CAPS Unlock website in the near future, examines how small and medium-sized enterprises could become drivers of decentralised green growth. Financing constraints, regulatory awareness gaps, and limited support mechanisms remain key barriers. Comparative lessons from Canada, Australia, and especially Uzbekistan illustrate how targeted incentives and information campaigns can accelerate uptake. Encouragingly, regional officials in Almaty have signalled interest in implementing elements of the study’s recommendations.

Links

Russia Leveraging Kyrgyzstan’s Crypto Ecosystem to Evade Sanctions - https://www.trmlabs.com/resources/blog/russia-leveraging-kyrgyzstans-crypto-ecosystem-to-evade-sanctions

Reuters reporting on proposed EU sanctions affecting Kyrgyzstan - https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/kyrgyzstan-seeks-talks-with-eu-over-report-that-bloc-considers-sanctions-over-2026-02-02/

Turkmenistan’s president to visit EU for talks on energy, EU ambassador says - https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/turkmenistans-president-visit-eu-talks-energy-eu-ambassador-says-2026-02-17/

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This week’s episode of the CAPS Unlock podcast plunges directly into political shifts unfolding across Central Asia. Developments in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan are each highly specific, rooted in their own institutional histories and elite dynamics. Yet taken together, they point to a deeper and more persistent anxiety: how personalistic political systems manage transition.

The entire episode is devoted to a conversation with Temur Umarov, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center whose work closely tracks political change across the region.

In Kyrgyzstan, President Sadyr Japarov’s abrupt dismissal of security chief Kamchybek Tashiyev marked the apparent end of a five-year tandem that had dominated the political system. The move was swift and coordinated: Tashiyev was removed while abroad, his deputies were dismissed, key security structures were reallocated, and several public figures linked to a controversial letter calling for early elections were detained. Was this a routine consolidation of power ahead of the 2027 presidential vote, or the deliberate dismantling of a parallel power centre?

In Kazakhstan, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has accelerated a constitutional overhaul initially framed as parliamentary reform. Within months, the initiative expanded into a broader rewrite, culminating in a March 15 referendum. Among the most closely watched elements is the reintroduction of a vice presidency, a structural innovation that inevitably raises questions about succession pathways, elite alignment, and long-term guarantees.

In Tajikistan, President Emomali Rahmon’s unexplained two-week absence reignited speculation about health and dynastic transition. Although he has since reappeared, the episode exposed how tightly the system remains tied to a single individual. With his son Rustam Emomali constitutionally positioned as interim successor, the framework for transfer appears clear on paper, but far less certain in practice.

Across the region, transition is no longer an abstract question. It is being tested in real time, through dismissals, constitutional redesign, and moments of silence that unsettle political systems built around personal authority.

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This week’s episode of the Caps Unlock Podcast opened with a discussion of a major shift in Central Asia’s external economic orientation: China has overtaken Russia to become the region’s largest trading partner. Drawing on newly published trade data for 2025, the conversation examined what it means for China-Central Asia trade to surpass the $100 billion mark for the first time, and why that figure matters beyond headline symbolism.

The discussion explored the drivers behind this rapid expansion, including infrastructure investment linked to the Belt and Road Initiative, the spread of Chinese e-commerce platforms and payment systems across Central Asia, and the growing role of the region as a logistical corridor amid Western sanctions on Russia. Particular attention was paid to trade imbalances, anomalous export data from Kyrgyzstan, and the risk that deepening integration with China could harden into a new form of economic lock-in, even as regional governments continue to pursue a multi-vector foreign policy strategy.

The episode then turned to a very different, but equally revealing, regional trend: the rise of so-called “dropperstvo,” the use of intermediaries to move money in fraud schemes. Using a recent case announced by Kyrgyzstan’s security services as a starting point, the discussion traced how organised networks supply SIM cards, messaging accounts, and bank access to international scam operations. These networks allow fraudsters to distance themselves from financial trails by routing victim payments through “droppers”, often young people recruited to provide temporary access to their accounts.

A second case from Kazakhstan illustrated how the same mechanism appears in more mundane criminal activity, including, in one recent instance, the illegal sale of vapes using third-party payment accounts. The conversation explored why authorities in both Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan have moved to criminalise dropper activity itself, and why law enforcement increasingly treats this as a youth-risk and financial literacy problem rather than a purely technical crime.

In the interview segment, the podcast featured Bakhytzhan Kurmanov, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Central Asia, discussing his 2024 paper, “Between ‘info-killers’ and ‘spies’: three strategies for interviewing government officials across Central Asia.” Drawing on extensive fieldwork across Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, Kurmanov outlined practical strategies for conducting sensitive interviews in environments marked by suspicion, weak research traditions, and political risk. The conversation focused on insider positionality, de-ceremonialising interviews, and depoliticising research questions, insights with relevance not only for academics, but also for journalists, policy researchers, and practitioners working with public institutions across the region.Links and further reading

* Report on China–Central Asia trade surpassing $100 billion (Xinhua or official customs data) - https://russian.news.cn/20260118/c13465d2d3b541f4a831f65849c8d70f/c.html

* Bloomberg report on Shell pausing investment in Kazakhstan - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-05/shell-to-pause-kazakh-oil-and-gas-investments-amid-disputes

* GKNB announcement on dismantling fraud network in Kyrgyzstan - https://24.kg/proisshestvija/360311_gruppu_postavlyavshuyu_telefonnyim_moshennikam_akkauntyi_iSIM-kartyi_zaderjali_vkr/

* Kazakhstan report on vape sales and dropper schemes - https://www.gov.kz/memleket/entities/afm/press/news/details/1148161?lang=ru

* Bakhytzhan Kurmanov, Between ‘info-killers’ and ‘spies’ (2024) - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02634937.2024.2375283

* Neil Collins, Elaine Sharplin, and Aziz Burkhanov (2023) — Challenges for political science research ethics in autocracies: A case study of Central Asia - https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/14789299231153074

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This week’s episode opened with a discussion of Kazakhstan’s provisional landmark arbitration victory against foreign oil majors over disputed costs at the Karachaganak oil and gas field. We unpacked why the ruling matters not only for the billions of dollars potentially at stake, but also for what it signals politically.

Drawing on reporting by Reuters and Bloomberg, the conversation explored how the case reaches back into the era of former President Nursultan Nazarbayev, how allegations of inflated or fictitious costs intersect with long-standing corruption concerns, and why the administration of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has framed the dispute as both a financial and moral reckoning. We also considered whether the ruling could meaningfully change how foreign investors behave in Kazakhstan’s extractive sector, or whether deeper structural incentives remain intact.

The discussion then turned to Kyrgyzstan’s decision to challenge Russia at the Eurasian Economic Union court over changes to access to state healthcare. A key clarification emerged early on: the issue is not that migrant workers themselves are being denied medical coverage, but that their dependents are no longer automatically entitled to state healthcare. We examined how this policy fits into Russia’s broader migration strategy, including recent data showing a sharp decline in the number of migrant children in the country. The episode explored what the case could mean for the credibility of the Eurasian Economic Union, whether the bloc’s legal commitments are being hollowed out in practice, and how the court’s eventual ruling could either reinforce or further undermine trust in regional integration frameworks.

In the interview segment, we spoke with Joe Luc Barnes, a journalist based in Almaty and the author of a recent article for The Times of Central Asia on declining reading habits in Kazakhstan. The conversation ranged from the economic pressures facing bookstores to the impact of currency weakness, e-commerce, and shifting language politics on the book market.

We discussed why Kazakhstan appears particularly affected by global declines in long-form reading, how the retreat of Russian-language publishing has not yet been offset by Kazakh-language production, and what this means for education, public discourse, and political literacy. Barnes also reflected on state-led reading initiatives, library usage statistics, and the longer-term risks of a society increasingly shaped by short-form, screen-driven information.

More reading

• Reuters reporting on the Karachaganak arbitration - https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/kazakhstan-tribunal-seeking-billions-oil-majors-cited-corrupt-officials-sources-2026-01-30/

• Bloomberg reporting on the Karachaganak arbitration - https://archive.is/PO6tN#selection-1177.0-1791.73

• Joe Luc Barnes’ article in The Times of Central Asia - https://timesca.com/the-battle-to-keep-kazakhstan-reading/

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The CAPS Unlock podcast returns after a long New Year break to track how an unsettled global agenda is pulling Central Asia into the fray.

We began with U.S. President Donald Trump’s newly launched Board of Peace, an initiative that started life as a Gaza oversight mechanism but quickly hardened into something broader: a leader-centric club with an unusually vague mandate and an unusually personalised governance model. The striking Central Asian angle is that Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan did not just endorse the concept; their presidents travelled to Davos last week to sign the charter as founding members.

We looked at what each government said publicly, what it carefully avoided saying, and why joining could be read as low-cost insurance with a highly personalised U.S. administration, even if the move sits awkwardly with both countries’ recent emphasis on multilateralism and institutional predictability.

Next, we turned to a more familiar but still unsettling signal: the recent burst of openly imperial rhetoric from prominent Russian nationalist voices. Vladimir Solovyov, a well-known TV political talkshow presenter, publicly mused about extending “special military operations” to Central Asia and Armenia. A week later, Russia’s foreign ministry tried to wave it away as private opinion. Then Alexander Dugin went further, questioning the legitimacy of sovereign states across Central Asia and the South Caucasus altogether. We discussed why that official distancing rings hollow, what this kind of talk does even when it is not backed by action, and how it narrows the space for trust in the region’s already fragile security environment.

For our interview segment this week, we spoke with Juan Carlos Leunissen, an independent researcher who interned with CAPS Unlock last year, about his new essay for the CAPS Unlock website on the six narratives the European Union uses to justify its investment in the Trans-Caspian (Middle Corridor) route and why the story the EU tells about connectivity may matter as much as the infrastructure itself.

LINKS

• Juan Carlos Leunissen essay: The six stories the European Union tells about Trans-Caspian transport https://capsunlock.org/the-six-stories-the-european-union-tells-about-trans-caspian-transport/

• Abdulaziz Kamilov comments on Uzbekistan’s rationale for joining https://www.gazeta.uz/ru/2026/01/23/abdulaziz-kamilov/

• CAPS Unlock LinkedIn page https://www.linkedin.com/company/capsunlockorg

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