{"id":11370,"date":"2023-05-18T11:24:32","date_gmt":"2023-05-18T11:24:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/2023\/05\/pb-5\/"},"modified":"2024-11-20T21:14:03","modified_gmt":"2024-11-20T18:14:03","slug":"central-asian-leaders-opted-to-attend-curtailed-parade-in-moscow-pavel-k-baev","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/2023\/05\/central-asian-leaders-opted-to-attend-curtailed-parade-in-moscow-pavel-k-baev\/","title":{"rendered":"Central Asian Leaders Opted to Attend Curtailed Parade in Moscow- Pavel K. Baev"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The Victory Day celebrated on May 9 is a hugely\nimportant and emotionally loaded holiday for the majority of Russians and\nUkrainians, Kazakhs and Uzbeks, whose grandfathers fought together and defeated\nNazi Germany back in 1945. In Russia, this solemn Remembrance Day was gradually\nconverted by all-pervasive propaganda into a manifestation of militarism and aggressive\nambition. This year, however, the traditionally loud festivities were subdued and\nstreet parades were cancelled due to security concerns<\/a>. Russia\u2019s fourteen and a half months long war against\nUkraine is not going well at all, and the very reduced military parade<\/a> on the Red Square in Moscow revealed the sad\ndegradation of the formerly proud army. Yet, the presidents of all five Central\nAsian states, as well as the President of Belarus and Prime Minister of\nArmenia, were there to make company for Russia\u2019s beleaguered President Vladimir\nPutin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The circumstances of this collective action are rather\nmurky as four days prior to the big day, only Kyrgyzstan\u2019s President Sadyr\nJaparov announced his schedule<\/a> to travel to Moscow. Then Tajikistan\u2019s President Emomali\nRahmon confirmed his visit<\/a>, but it was only on May 8 that Kazakhstan\u2019s reform-committed\nPresident Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Uzbekistan\u2019s domestically-preoccupied\nPresident Shavkat Mirziyoyev, and Turkmenistan\u2019s reclusive President Serdar Berdimuhamedov\nboarded their planes without even a word on the sudden change<\/a> in their respective plans. Only direct and urgent\nphone calls from the Kremlin could have convinced them to make the politically difficult\ndecision, but there are no signs of such summons on the official websites or\nother track records.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What made the normally carefully scripted ceremonies\nin Moscow unusually tense was the shocking drone attack<\/a> on the Kremlin in the early hours of May 3, with two\nspectacular even if low-yield explosions over the cupola of the Senate palace,\non which the main flagpole is proudly erected. No material damage was done, but\nthe political resonance of this daring strike, which the Ukrainians deny any\ninvolvement in, was massive. Suspicions in a \u201cfalse flag<\/a>\u201d operation staged by a branch of Russian omnipotent security\nservices remain thick, but it has become clear that the attempts by the top\nbrass to deliver a due \u201cretaliation\u201d failed, as the hypersonic Kinzhal Kh-47M2<\/a> air-launched missile was shot down over Kyiv by the\nUS-supplied Patriot MIM-104 air-to-surface system. Putin was compelled to show\ndetermination in presiding over the parade, and the presence of Central Asian\nguests of honor became an insurance against the risk<\/a> of another drone strike, which would have amounted to\na major international incident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Putin\u2019s need in surrounding himself with high-level\nguests was quite obvious, but the motivations of six leaders (with the obvious\nexception of Alexander Lukashenko, who is in no position<\/a> to refuse Putin\u2019s summons) are less clear. All five\nCentral Asian states are playing, with different skill and success, a balancing\ngame regarding the Ukraine war, refusing both to condemn Russian aggression and\nto recognize the annexations. This game is not that dissimilar<\/a> to the policy that T\u00fcrkiye is pursuing, though none of them dares to supply\nweapons to Ukraine. There is, however, always a price to pay for playing it\nboth ways, and Tokayev, for one, was hardly entertained listening to Putin\u2019s speech<\/a> on the \u201ccivilization\u201d coming again under attack from\nthe treacherous Western elites. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This minor humiliation of displaying loyalty to\nRussia\u2019s ruler is made agreeable by the fact that Kazakhstan is one of the main beneficiaries<\/a> of the evolving confrontation between Russia and the\nWest. Tens of thousands of young Russians have escaped from mobilization to\nthis country, and hundreds of businesses have relocated<\/a> to Astana and Almaty. Kazakhstan\u2019s export to Russia\nhas increased manyfold, and media investigations<\/a> show that a large part of this trade flow consists of\ngoods from Europe travelling this long way to satisfy desperate Russian demand\nfor industrial imports. The EU takes measures to plug holes in the sanctions\nregime and seeks to ensure Kazakhstan\u2019s cooperation<\/a> in preventing the supply of spare parts and high-tech\ncomponents that the Russian defense-industrial complex<\/a> urgently needs, but the definition of \u201cdual use\u201d\ntechnologies has become impossibly broad and complex.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What both the autocratic and the semi-democratic\nleaders of the post-Soviet states worry about are the consequences of Russia\u2019s\nfast-progressing weakening in the course of the unwinnable war. Moscow may be\nunable to perform the role of a \u201csecurity guarantor\u201d, which it demonstrated as\nrecently as January 2022, deploying troops to Kazakhstan for a short order-restoring mission<\/a>. The durability of Putin\u2019s regime remains,\nnevertheless, a crucial underpinning for stability in Central Asia, so the five\nleaders reasoned that a little demonstration of solidarity can do no harm. They\nare all aware that the unimpressive parade in Moscow took place in the shadow\nof the long-prepared Ukrainian offensive, which may break the deadlock in the devastating\nwar. Whether Putin\u2019s regime survives the impact of a very probable defeat is\nthe question that looms large for all neighbors, as well as for the re-energized\nWest committed to delivering victory to Ukraine, but the answer can only be\ndelivered by the Russians, who cannot find a clue in the old victory for bringing\nto an end the tragic unjust war that has demoralized the society and shaken the\nRussian state. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pavel K. Baev, Dr., Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO)<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Pavel K. Baev is a Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO). He is also Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for the U.S. and Europe at the Brookings Institution (Washington D.C.), Senior Associate Researcher at the Institut Fran\u00e7ais des Relations Internationales(IFRI, Paris), and Senior Associate Research Fellow at the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI, Milan). His research interests include the transformation of the Russian military, the energy and security dimensions of the Russian-European relations, Russia\u2019s Arctic policy, Russia-China partnership, post-Soviet conflict management in the Caucasus and the Caspian Basin, and Russia\u2019s Middle East policy, which is supported by the Norwegian Foreign Ministry. He writes a weekly column in Eurasia Daily Monitor<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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To cite this work:<\/strong> Pavel K. Baev, “Central Asian Leaders Opted to Attend Curtailed Parade in Moscow”, Panorama<\/em>, Online, 18 May 2023, https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/blog\/2023\/05\/18\/pb-5\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Copyright@UIKPanorama.<\/em> All on-line and print rights reserved. Opinions expressed in works published by the Panorama<\/em> belongs to the authors alone unless otherwise stated, and do not imply endorsement by the IRCT, Global Academy, or the Editors\/Editorial Board of Panorama. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Victory Day celebrated on May 9 is a hugely important and emotionally loaded holiday for the majority of Russians and Ukrainians, Kazakhs and Uzbeks, whose grandfathers fought together and defeated Nazi Germany back in 1945. In Russia, this solemn Remembrance Day was gradually converted by all-pervasive propaganda into a manifestation of militarism and aggressive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":10088,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[502,509,512,486,507],"tags":[547,656,585,589],"class_list":["post-11370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia","category-china","category-crisis-in-ukraine","category-opinion","category-russia","tag-cental-asia","tag-english","tag-leader","tag-moscow"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}