Our People > Bruce Pannier

Bruce Pannier

Bruce Pannier is a Central Asia Fellow in the Eurasia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, the advisory board at the Caspian Policy Center, and a longtime journalist and correspondent covering Central Asia. He currently appears regularly on the Majlis podcast for RFE/RL.

Articles

Oil and Gas gasoline Exports Shortages

Turkmenistan’s Unexplained Shortage of Gasoline

For months now, areas in eastern Turkmenistan have been facing a severe gasoline shortage. The lack of fuel at the pumps is having a knock-on effect that is raising food prices and shutting down public transportation. Turkmen officials have not acknowledged there is any problem, so the people of the affected regions have no idea why this happening or for how long this situation will continue. Gasoline shortages are not new to Turkmenistan. They have been occurring sporadically in recent years, usually during in late summer when harvesting of crops starts. This latest deficit is unprecedented for Turkmenistan in its duration and severity. Long lines and purchase limits By late June, there reports from Lebap and Mary provinces about lines of cars of waiting at petrol stations. Often there was not enough gasoline for everyone. By mid-July, filling stations in at least five districts and several of the big cities in Lebap Province were often completely out of higher-grade gasoline – A92 and A95. Before the end of July, Lebap authorities imposed a 10-liter limit per customer, per day on gasoline purchases. At the start of July there were areas in the northeastern Dashoguz Province that were totally without gasoline, even the cheapest and most environmentally harmful A-80 grade (which is banned in many countries, including Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan) was unavailable. In Mary Province, A-92 and A-95 gasoline ran out in July and by early August authorities had limited purchases of A-80 to 20 liters per customer, and even that was unavailable in many areas of the province. In October, Radio Free Europe’s Turkmen service, known locally as Azatlyk, posted a video of a line of vehicles some three kilometers long outside one of the few filling stations operating along the Turkmenabad-Mary highway. Azatlyk’s sources in the region said there were similar lines at filling stations throughout the province and in the provincial capital Turkmenabad. Some people are reportedly arriving at filling stations at 4am to get a place in line as close to the pumps as possible when the stations open. In Mary Province, some car owners said they were phoning family members to bring them food and water while they waited in line. Prices going up at the pumps and other areas Turkmenistan has some of the least expensive gasoline in the world with an average of $0.428 per liter, roughly a third of the world average of $1.30 per liter. The official rate of Turkmenistan’s national currency, the manat, is 3.5 to $1. The state regulated cost of one liter of gasoline is 1.15 manat for A-80, 1.35 for A-92, 1.5 for A-95, and 1 manat for diesel. There have been incidents where filling station employees have been illegally selling gasoline at 5-6 manat per liter to those who can afford it. The shortage is having an effect on public transportation. Most buses are assigned to bringing people to and from the cotton fields once harvest starts toward the end of August or early September...

3 months ago

Regional Relations Karakalpakstan Asylum

Karakalpak Activists Facing Charges in Uzbekistan, Granted Asylum in the United States

The waiting, worrying, and wondering are finally over for four Karakalpak activists who were detained in Kazakhstan some two years ago, and faced possible extradition back to Uzbekistan. Zhangeldi Zhaksimbetov, Tleubike Yuldasheva, Raisa Khudaybergenova, and Ziuar Mirmanbetova received word on October 15 that they had been granted asylum in the United States. It ended more than two years of uncertainty that started with the unrest in Karakalpakstan on July 1, 2022. Karakalpakstan is part of Uzbekistan, but has a special status as a sovereign republic with its own parliament and constitution that allows the region to hold a referendum on seceding from Uzbekistan. Those unique privileges are also enshrined in Uzbekistan’s constitution, but in spring 2022 parliament proposed making amendments to the constitution. The main reason for the amendments was to change the presidential term from five to seven years so that incumbent President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who was serving his second and constitutionally last term at the time, could extend his stay in power. However, the commission drafting the constitutional changes also dropped the articles referring to Karakalpakstan’s sovereign status and right to secede. Those rights were nominal as there was no chance Uzbek authorities would allow Karakalpakstan to fully govern itself or secede. Karakalpakstan accounts for some 37% of Uzbekistan’s territory, and also has large oil and natural gas reserves that have just started being developed in the past ten years. The special rights Karakalpakstan had might have been nominal, particularly since ethnic Karakalpaks make up only about one-third of Karakalpakstan’s two million inhabitants. But these distinctions, albeit it only on paper, were important to the Karakalpaks, and when the proposed amendments were published at the end of June 2022, tensions started rising immediately in Karakalpakstan. On July 1, Karakalpak community leaders went to apply for permission to hold a public meeting against the planned changes affecting Karakalpakstan. The group’s leader, activist and lawyer Dauletmurat Tazhimuratov, was detained. Word spread and a large group numbering at least several thousand gathered, protesting peacefully outside the administration building in the Karakalpakstan capital, Nukus. When police and security forces attempted to disperse the crowd, violence broke out, and when it was over and order finally restored, at least 21 people were dead and 243 injured. Nearly all the casualties were Karakalpaks, and police and security forces were accused of using unnecessary and indiscriminate force against the protesters. News of the proposed amendments, and the ensuing violence spread to the Karakalpak communities in other countries, notably to neighboring Kazakhstan, where, according to various estimates, anywhere from 50,000 to 200,000 Karakalpaks live. Most have Kazakh citizenship, but some simply work in Kazakhstan and remain citizens of Uzbekistan. Karakalpak activists in Kazakhstan followed events in Karakalpakstan in late June and early July 2022 and posted about it on social networks, sometimes with words of support for the protesters. After Uzbek authorities had restored order in Kazakhstan and arrested more than 500 people, Uzbek officials requested the Kazakh government detain Karakalpaks in Kazakhstan who had been...

3 months ago

USSR History Legislation Culture

Uzbekistan’s Point Man Against Russian “Chauvinism”

Alisher Qodirov is 49 years old, the leader of Uzbekistan’s Milli Tiklanish (National Revival) party, the deputy speaker of the lower house of parliament, and a former presidential candidate. And Qodirov is also a leading critical voice in Uzbekistan regarding the country’s Soviet past and comments of current Russian chauvinists. On September 4, Qodirov wrote on his Telegram account that Soviet ideological propaganda should be banned in Uzbekistan. He was responding to a court verdict earlier that day against a 74-year-old pensioner in Samarkand who was found guilty of “encroaching on the constitutional order of Uzbekistan.” Specifically, the man advocated the restoration of the Soviet Union and said Uzbekistan’s independence was superficial. Qodirov wrote that Uzbekistan’s time as a Soviet republic was a “sad period of our history.” The Milli Tiklanish leader said even suggesting a recreation of the USSR was a “betrayal of our people and our ancestors, who became victims of the bloody regime.” Qodirov continued that calls for Uzbekistan‘s reincorporation into some sort of a resurrected USSR “should be considered a crime against the constitutional order of the country.” The Milli Tiklanish leader said such thinking was a “betrayal of our people and our ancestors, who became victims of the bloody regime.” Qodirov has expressed his opinion on the Soviet Union before. When Uzbekistan marked May Day on May 1, 2021, the Soviet flag was raised during a concert of “Songs of Victory” in Tashkent. Posting on Telegram, Qodirov called the incident “an insult and a provocation… to the Uzbek people to raise the flag of the Soviet occupying state in the very center of the capital, which is soaked in the blood of… our ancestors.” Russian chauvinism has been rising since the Kremlin launched its full-scale war on Ukraine, and so have irredentist remarks from people on Russian television and officials in the State Duma. Kazakhstan, which shares a 7,800-kilometer border with Russia, is usually the target, but in the last year, Uzbekistan has been mentioned. On December 20, 2023, Russian writer, nationalist, and co-chairman of the A Just Russia – For the Truth party, Zakhar Prilepin spoke about migrant laborers at press conference in Moscow. The majority of migrant laborers in Russia are from Central Asia and Prilepin said, “These territories, from where migrant workers come to us, should simply be annexed entirely.” Prilepin specifically mentioned Uzbekistan, as more than half the Central Asian migrant laborers in Russia come from there. “Uzbekistan, for example… since two million of your citizens are on our territory, we claim your territory,” Prilepin told a press conference, and added, “Who will forbid us to do anything useful on the territory of the Eurasian territory after the parade in Kyiv? No one.” Less than one month later, on January 22, 2024, Russia’s NTV television station showed an interview with a person identified as Mikhail Smolin, a historian. Smolin absurdly claimed the Uzbek nation never existed until after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Smolin said the same about Kazakhs and Azerbaijanis....

4 months ago

U.S. Taliban Military Afghanistan Rudenshiold

U.S. Decision to Give Military Aircraft to Uzbekistan Upsets Taliban

Ownership of 46 U.S. military aircraft that have sat on the tarmac in Uzbekistan’s southern city of Termez for more than three years has finally been established. Most of those planes and helicopters are going to Uzbekistan, and south of the Uzbek border in Afghanistan, the Taliban are not pleased with this decision. Escape from Afghanistan On August 15, 2021, Taliban forces freely entered Kabul and reestablished themselves in power. The rapid advances of Taliban militants across Afghanistan earlier that month came as the last foreign forces were departing from the country. Panic broke out throughout the nation. On the day the Taliban entered Kabul, dozens of Afghan Army aircraft carrying government officials and soldiers left their bases and flew north, some to Tajikistan, most to Uzbekistan. In Uzbekistan, the Afghans were deported to U.S. custody and taken to the United Arab Emirates, where they were eventually given U.S. visas and sent to live in the United States. However, the 22 planes and 24 helicopters they flew aboard to Uzbekistan have remained at Termez. The aircraft belonged to the United States. They were loaned for use by the U.S.-backed government forces in Afghanistan. The Taliban assert that all the weapons used by troops of the ousted Afghan government belong to the Afghan people, meaning to the Taliban. On January 4, 2022, Taliban Defense Ministry representative, Inomulla Samagani, said a request for the return of the aircraft had been made to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Days later, the Taliban’s acting Defense Minister, Mawlawi Mohammad Yaqoob, son of Taliban founder Mullah Omar, demanded their return. “Our planes that you have, that are in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, must be returned to us,” Yaqoob said, warning both countries, “not to test our patience and not to force us to take possible retaliatory steps to [reclaim the aircraft].” As economic relations have grown between Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and Uzbekistan since late 2021, the Taliban’s language has softened, but their claim to the planes and helicopters has been repeated several times. On August 24, 2024, Uzbekistan’s kun.uz news agency reported that U.S. Ambassador to Uzbekistan Johnathan Henick had stated that most of the U.S. aircraft in Uzbekistan would be handed over to the Uzbek government. “Yes, it is already official,” Henick said. “The military equipment will remain in Uzbekistan, this is already settled.” Unsurprisingly, the Taliban Defense Ministry responded to Henick’s remarks. “Any agreement regarding the fate of Afghan helicopters and planes in Uzbekistan is unacceptable,” a Taliban Defense Ministry statement stated. Taliban Defense Ministry spokesman, Emayatullah Khwarazmi, said in an audio statement released on August 27 that the “government of Uzbekistan is expected to refrain from any dealings in this regard, to consider good neighborly relations, and to make a wise decision by cooperating in the return of Afghanistan's air force aircraft." U.S. officials have made it clear since 2021 that under no circumstance would the aircraft be given to Afghanistan. During a visit to Dushanbe in June 2022, Commander of the U.S. Central Command, General...

5 months ago

Russia Migration Migrant Workers

Central Asians Beaten and Deported from Russia

The punishment for many Central Asians in Russia whose work or residency documents are not in order is pain and humiliation, and then possibly deportation. Xenophobia targeting Central Asians in Russia has been on the rise since the March 22 terrorist attack on Moscow’s Crocus City Hall that left more than 140 people dead. Russian authorities apprehended a group of ethnic Tajiks who allegedly carried out the attack and after that the level of prejudice against Central Asians in Russia, which has always existed, dramatically worsened. The treatment of Central Asians at the Sakharovo migration center on the outskirts of Moscow is an example. Moscow courts are likely to send Central Asians caught with document problems to the Sakharovo center. Radio Free Europe’s Kyrgyz Service interviewed several people who passed through the Sakharovo center. Their descriptions shed light on the conditions inside. One man who spent 18 days in the center said, “The day we entered there, they intimidated us, forced us to walk in single file, run fast… then they examined us and beat us with a stun gun.” That jibes with another man’s description. “They call your last name, then you go out into the corridor and run. There they hit you on the back of the head and tell you to ‘run.’” Then, the man continued, “They made me face the wall, forced me to raise my arms up, spread my legs, and started hitting me with a stun gun.” There is an anti-Islamic element to the treatment of detainees at Sakharovo. A different person remembered this about his detention. “They fed us food with pork. Since we were hungry, we removed the meat and ate what was left.” He said there were some people who recited their daily prayers in their rooms. “When one guy was saying namaz, the guards entered. Then one of them (the guards) hit him in the face twice.” When the person continued saying his prayers, the guards said, “Let him go to Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and read his prayer there.” Some of the detainees with beards were forcibly shaved. Batygul Moldobayeva is from Kyrgyzstan. She was detained in Moscow this summer with an expired work permit and sent to Sakharovo. Moldobayeva said the guards yelled at women detainees and were rude to them. She added that sometimes the guards “asked them to be their ‘temporary wives.’” Moldobayeva said there were pregnant women in the center, some as far along as six months, and the guards did not pay any attention to their condition. According to Moldobayeva, there were some Kyrgyz citizens at Sakharovo who had been there for three or four months. Askar Uskenbayev is another Kyrgyz citizen who was detained in Moscow in mid-June and sent to Sakharovo. He said he met fellow Kyrgyz citizens who had been there six months. After being deported back to Kyrgyzstan, Moldobayeva posted about her experience on social media and warned Kyrgyz citizens to be sure all their documents were in order if they...

5 months ago