In July 2025, the PSCR program focused on extensively analyzing various aspects of Russia’s foreign and internal politics, while also keeping an eye on developments in Central Asia and Moldova.
Alexander Shpunt continues to analyze the peculiarities of Moldova’s relationships with the EU in the challenging context of the conflict between political and economic elites, also typical of some other post-Soviet states. If political elites are oriented towards the European accession process, business circles are entrenched in the structural ties with the Russian economy. In Moldova, this tension is manifested, inter alia, in the energy sector: energy supplies have been long monopolized by Moldovagaz, largely under the control of Russian Gazprom. Also, Chisinau enjoyed cheap energy from Transnistria, where the Moldovan GRES is located, and which has profited from special relations with Moscow. However, supplies through the territory of Ukraine have recently ceased, and Moldova has had to buy more expensive energy from Romania while simultaneously attempting to nationalize its key energy assets. The escalation of Chisinau-Tiraspol relations, amid rumors about the former’s plans to seize the Moldovan GRES by force, was overcome in January. However, the upcoming fall and winter may be challenging for the frozen status of the conflict, especially against the backdrop of the state of economic emergency introduced in Transnistria in December 2024 and subsequently extended several times.
The brief but significant military escalation between Iran and Israel has become a point of attention for all scholars of the region. Maxim Starchak overviews and summarizes the opinions of the Russian expert community on Israel’s decision to physically destroy Iran’s nuclear program. One of the main concerns associated with this action is that Iran’s nuclear potential was not actually destroyed, although its development was slowed down by a year or two. The proliferation threat is not eliminated, and Iran may have developed a smaller secret nuclear facility not affected by the attack. Now, many influential actors in Tehran advocate for further tightening of internal and foreign policies and restructuring the nuclear program by making it even more secretive and focused on weapons. The joint attack by Israel and the US has demonstrated that nuclear non-proliferation may be upheld not by diplomacy but by the use of force, which creates a dangerous precedent. At the same time, Moscow has not provided any effective support to Tehran in the course of the conflict, not least because Russia itself, “despite the official rhetoric, (…) would not want Iran to acquire nuclear weapons and would be satisfied with maintaining the nonproliferation regime.” Dangerously, “Iran’s creation of nuclear weapons can show that even with a dangerous neighbor, being subjected to sanctions and missile attacks, it is realistic to implement a military nuclear program.”
Demonstrating yet another facet of the problem, Andrei Kazantsev-Vaisman explains why Pakistan and the Central Asian states have not provided any significant support to Iran during the brief open war with Israel. Beyond the very threat of the potential nuclear strikes, the countries of Central Asia fear the possible collapse of transport and communication projects in the region and the influx of refugees, as well as the radicalization of pro-Iranian and anti-Israeli Islamist circles in their respective societies. That is why Iran could only count on occasional expressions of rhetorical solidarity, while the priority of its neighboring countries “remains regime survival and internal stability, not ideological adventurism on behalf of regional allies.” The position of Pakistan, with its military and nuclear capacities, is even more important, and it “maintains a delicate balancing act between its Sunni Islamic ideological identity and its geostrategic interests,” while the sympathy towards Tehran can be rhetorical at its very best. Especially amid the false claims about Pakistan’s support for Iran and the dangerous escalation with India, Islamabad realizes that any military entanglement, especially in a “foreign” conflict, might compromise and undermine its reputation as a defensive nuclear power. The strained nature of Pakistan-Iran bilateral relations, because of military incursions in the border regions and mutual accusations of harboring militant proxies, should also be taken into account.
Alexander Grinberg sheds light on the recent crisis in the Russian-Azerbaijani relations caused by the detention, brutal handling, and subsequent injuries and even deaths of several prominent members of the Azerbaijani diaspora, accused of criminal offenses, in the city of Yekaterinburg. The absence of the awaited reactions from Russian officials has prompted Baku to retaliate with repressive measures against Russian media and cultural projects and provoked rather hostile rhetoric in Azerbaijani and Turkish media. In their turn, Russian authorities labeled Azerbaijan’s reaction as unfriendly and disruptive to the bilateral relations, and further escalation of these tensions (first caused by the Azerbaijani airplane catastrophe in December 2024) might be well expected. Apart from the immediate causes, Grinberg ascribes the ongoing crisis to the “Kremlin’s dissatisfaction with Baku’s excessive independence and the formation of a Turkey-Azerbaijan axis in the South Caucasus,” noting, at the same time, that Azerbaijan “is not interested in further deterioration but only in protecting its vital interests vis-à-vis the Kremlin.”
Turning to the part of the Caucasus that is situated within Russia’s borders, the PSCRP team traces the consequences of the antisemitic pogrom at the airport in Makhachkala, in Russia’s region of Dagestan. Twenty months have passed since this unprecedented event, allowing for a preliminary assessment. The authors underline the rather harsh sentences (but generally corresponding to the respective legal framework) that the mass riot participants were sentenced to, the role of the Telegram channel “Utro Dagestan” (associated with certain emigrant circles) in orchestrating the pogrom, and the authorities’ desire to conceal their immediate inability to prevent this scenario by harsh rhetoric and drastic measures. The authors’ team also notices that the recent escalation between Iran and Israel has not provoked a similar spike in public antisemitism in Dagestan, not least because (1) the Iranians are mostly Shia Muslims (unlike most Dagestani Muslims), (2) no significant organizational force similar to the “Utro Dagestan” has emerged, and (3) the coverage of the conflict by the local media was quite cautious. The experts conclude that “with sufficient political will and competence, it is possible to keep not necessarily antisemitic attitudes themselves, but at least their violent public expressions, under control.”
Andrei Kazantsev-Vaisman provides his analysis of the repercussions that Russia’s recognition of the Taliban as the legitimate political regime in Afghanistan might have for the global geopolitical order. This process has occurred gradually and was initially objected to by a significant part of Russia’s counter-terrorist security personnel, taking into account that the Taliban was officially listed as a terrorist organization by the Russian authorities. However, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has pushed for the official recognition of the “de facto” state of affairs in Afghanistan, with one of the reasons being hopes for a joint operation against ISIS-Khorasan (which organized a deadly terror attack in Moscow in 2024). Also, the official recognition of the Taliban can be considered a political and ideological move, since it is considered a part of the “anti-Western” world. However, deep internal contradictions between the potential authoritarian “Eurasian” bloc’s prospective members (Iran vs. Taliban because of the sectarian hostility, China vs. Taliban because of the Xinjiang concerns, Pakistan vs. Taliban because of the border problems, etc.) make its creation largely hypothetical. The author concludes that, because of the movement’s lack of democratic legitimacy and human rights violations, “the recognition of the Taliban (…) is likely to undermine prospects for sustainable peace in Eurasia and the wider Middle East.”
As usual, Alexander Shpunt presents his monthly monitoring of analytical publications focused on post-Soviet conflicts, summarizing the five most interesting papers/monographs, in the author’s assessment, covering politics and economy in the post-Soviet space.
The PSCRP stays true to its mission of providing expert opinions and overviews of the current affairs in the post-Soviet region.