Temur Umarov is a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His research is focused on Central Asian countries' domestic and foreign policies, as well as China's relations with Russia and Central Asian neighbors.
A native of Uzbekistan, Temur Umarov has degrees in China studies and international relations from the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, and Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO). He holds an MA in world economics from the University of International Business and Economics (Beijing). He is also an alumnus of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center’s Young Ambassadors and the Carnegie Endowment’s Central Asian Futures programs.
Prior to joining Carnegie, Umarov worked as an assistant to a deputy director in the Chinese automobile manufacturer Lifan Group's CIS representative office, where he was responsible for the development of business to Central Asia and the South Caucasus.
Moscow had every opportunity to make the Central Asian nations gravitate toward it of their own accord. Yet now Russian soft power in Central Asia is dissipating before our eyes.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, the red lines in its relationship with Russia have been unclear for Kazakhstan. If earlier Kazakhstan holding military drills with NATO would not have angered Russia, now Moscow sees itself as being at war with the West and may act much more aggressively.
The war in Ukraine has enabled Kazakhstan’s Tokayev to reinvent himself as a truly independent figure, no longer reliant on either his predecessor Nazarbayev or Russia’s Putin. Now Tokayev hopes to cement this status by securing a popular mandate to rule.
A social media post by former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev warning that northern Kazakhstan could be next in line after Ukraine was quickly taken down, but it reflects the mindset of Russian hawks and is entirely in keeping with Russian political dialogue, where few taboos remain.
The hypothetical scenario of Moscow edging out the West from Kazakhstan would not necessarily mean that Russia could step into the resulting vacuum. It’s more likely that Moscow would simply be helping China to shore up its influence in Central Asia.
The rest of President Tokayev’s years in power are unlikely to be uneventful. The new Kazakh president has yet to establish his authority and to surround himself with trusted elites. Most importantly of all, he cannot rely on the loyalty of the security services.
The protests in Kazakhstan have shown that the current model of governance has angered millions of people who missed out when the resources pie was shared out. Yet that model is such an intrinsic part of the country’s economic and political structure that the leadership is unlikely to be able to change it, should President Tokayev wish to do so.
What does Russia hope to achieve in 2022? The Moscow Times asked 10 leading experts in Russian foreign policy to give their predictions for the coming year.
