Our People > Stephen M. Bland

Stephen M. Bland

Senior Editor and Head of Investigations

Stephen M. Bland is a journalist, author, editor, commentator and researcher specialising in Central Asia and the Caucasus. Prior to joining The Times of Central Asia, he has worked for NGOs, think tanks, as the Central Asia expert on a forthcoming documentary series, for the BBC, The Diplomat, EurasiaNet, and numerous other publications. Published in 2016, his book on Central Asia was the winner of the Golden Laureate of Eurasian Literature. He is currently putting the finishing touches to a book about the Caucasus. www.stephenmbland.com

Articles

Death of Navalny Met With Mixed Feelings in Central Asia

Alexei Navalny has died in the Russian "Polar Wolf" penal colony, the Federal Penitentiary Service of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District in Siberia, Russia, has reported. An anti-corruption campaigner and anti-government figure in Russia, Navalny returned to his homeland from Germany in 2021, where laboratory tests confirmed he had been poisoned by a nerve agent. However, whilst Navalny's opposition to Putin won him support in the West, he leaves a more complex legacy in Central Asia, having called migration from the region to Russia an “orgy of tolerance”. On the streets of Kazakhstan, however, a mournful mood largely prevailed. "This situation shows the current Russian regime as it is, Polina, a photographer from Astana told TCA. "There are a lot of opinions about Navalny's activities, but I think in any case his death shows how cruel the Russian Government is how much Navalny and his influence were feared." “Another voice of reason that has been silenced. It makes me feel hopeless for the current state of the world,” Isabella, a scientist from Astana told TCA. "I hoped he would be the next [Russian] president. May he rest in peace – he is a part of history," Ilyas, a businessman from Taraz commented. "He made a sacrifice of himself. It's a pity," said Almas, cameraman from Astana. Others voiced indifference, however. "Navalny's a minister, isn't he? Oh no he's in the opposition,” Nurbolat, a taxi driver from Temirtau told TCA. “It's all so murky." A renowned nationalist, during Russia's 2008 invasion of Georgia, Navalvy referred to Georgians as "rodents". In 2011, Navalny co-organized the “Russian marches,” often labelled as a xenophobic event and tied to Neo-Nazi groups, a movement he never renounced. During the Moscow mayoral campaign two years later a key policy pledge was to fight against migrants, who he accused of crime, the threat of terrorism, and the alienation of culture. Speaking in November 2015, Navalny claimed that “90% of immigrants to Russia [from Central Asia] are young Muslim men from rural areas, that is, the very environment from which terrorists are recruited.” Of the estimated eleven million migrants in Russia at the time, no terrorist attacks involved the participation of people from Central Asia, citizens of which accounted for less than 1% of all crimes committed by migrants. An easy target for the Russian police, migrants have been subjected to attacks by Neo-fascist groups. Living in dormitory blocks overseen by gang-masters on the plains of Siberia, some have died on the job. “Navalny is a figure who evoked diametrically opposed emotions. Some admired him, others hated him,” said Alexandra Garmazhapova, President of Free Buryatia Foundation. “I won't lie, I've never been a fan of his. A couple of times we even clashed with him precisely because of his participation in the “Russian March”. In the winter of 2021, when Navalny returned to Russia, I was in Moscow and participated in protests. I emphasized that I was against corruption, and not for Navalny, who was expelled from Yabloko in the...

8 months ago

Kazakhstan’s Proposed Nuclear Power Plant: a Geopolitical Tightrope amid Environmental Concerns

Renowned for its abundant uranium reserves and expansive mining ventures, Kazakhstan is making substantial progress in the realm of nuclear power. Currently, approximately 60 nuclear reactors are under construction worldwide in 17 countries, and with more in the pipeline, demand for uranium has skyrocketed. Kazakhstan is by far the world's largest producer of nuclear fuel, mining 21,227 tons in 2022, which equates to 43% of global production. Kazatomprom, the national atomic company, is the world's largest uranium producer, with its subsidiaries, affiliates, and joint ventures developing 26 deposits. Russia, Japan, China, Canada, and France are all heavily invested, whilst international agreements exist with a plethora of other nations. Kazakhstan’s inaugural venture into the nuclear field was marked by the BN-350 fast-neutron reactor in Aktau, which ran from 1973 to 1999 before being decommissioned. Now, President Tokayev has announced a referendum will be held to decide whether to build the nation’s first fully-fledged nuclear power plant. "On the one hand, Kazakhstan, as the world's biggest uranium producer, should have its own nuclear power capacity," Tokayev stated. "On the other hand, many citizens and some experts have concerns about the safety of nuclear power plants.” The Proving Ground With Kazakhstan having endured the most contamination of all the former Soviet Republics, anything nuclear is a contentious issue. Between 1949 and 1989, the authorities executed more than 750 nuclear tests in Kazakhstan, the bulk of these, including the USSR’s first successful atomic explosion - codenamed Joe-1 - taking place in the Semipalatinsk Polygon (proving ground) in the north-east of the country. By far the hardest hit area, Semipalatinsk saw 456 tests, which affected two million people across 300 square kilometers. Eager to know what to expect in the event of a nuclear war, in 1957 the Soviets secretly opened Dispensary Number Four in Semipalatinsk. Shipping in spectators - teachers were instructed to have their pupils watch explosions - the facility observed and analyzed the effects of radiation on the populous and reported their findings back to Moscow. In this post-apocalyptic land, elevated levels of cancer, tuberculosis and mental illness persist. Today, people swim in crater lakes left by blasts which dot the steppe, though animals won’t go near the water. With all agriculture banned, a vast swathe of land still remains off-limits. Pregnancies are still screened for possible termination, with 6% of babies born “polygon.” Even in inhabited areas, Geiger counters read over 250; the normal level is just fifteen. In their headlong rush to abandon the empire upon the collapse of the USSR, the Russians left more than an undetonated payload in the mines of Semipalatinsk. As soldiers rioted over conditions and unpaid wages, upon its independence Kazakhstan inherited the fourth largest nuclear arsenal in the world. With Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi sniffing around, it was widely rumored that the Iranians, who the CIA publicly alleged to be “actively shopping,” had offered $300 million for weapons-grade uranium. Arriving in Kazakhstan post-haste, through a combination of threats, the promise of a seat at the international table...

8 months ago

Stepping Out of Stalin’s Shadow: Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan Demarcate 90% of Border

Representatives of the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan met in Bishkek on February 5th to complete negotiations on another 3.71 km of the common state border, the press service of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Kyrgyz Republic has reported. The next meeting will be held in Tajikistan, with no date yet specified. Currently, approximately 90% of the border has been demarcated, with the remaining 10% still considered disputed. A long-standing source of conflict between the two nations, it is emblematic of the problem that even the length of the border - sometimes cited as being 975-kilomtres long, and at others times 972-kilomteres - is rarely agreed upon. As of January 2023, Tajikistan’s President Rahmon stated that 614-kilometres had been settled upon, backtracking on a previously stated figure of 664. In a sign of thawing relations, however, on November 9th 2023, the Cabinet of Ministers of the Kyrgyz Republic announced that a further 17.98 kilometers of the border had been agreed. With its scant natural resources and dwindling water supplies, the border between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan has been the scene of numerous skirmishes for many years. In 2014, all borders between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan were closed indefinitely to Kyrgyz and Tajik citizens following clashes over a bypass road in disputed territory; mortars were fired and both armies suffered casualties. Trouble spilled over again throughout 2021 and 2022, reportedly starting over a water dispute in the Vorukh enclave, and leaving an unknown number in the hundreds killed, and up to 136,000 people evacuated. An enduring example of the chaos left behind by the USSR, the arbitrary division of Central Asia into Soviet Socialist Republics wholly disregarded existing cultural and geographical realities. This is exemplified by Stalin's application of Lenin’s policy on the “self-identification of working people,” a classic divide-and-rule play which saw culturally Tajik cities such as Samarkand and Bukhara being incorporated into Uzbek territory. In exchange, Tajikistan was given the inhospitable Khojand landmass surrounding the Fan Mountains. As late as 1989, Tajikistan petitioned Mikhail Gorbachev for the ‘return’ of Samarkand and Bukhara. This haphazard division also isolated around 100,000 residents in the Ferghana Valley from their central governments, creating eight large enclaves. Although three of these enclaves had populations fewer than 10,000 and two were used exclusively for pastures, the remaining three - Sokh (Uzbekistan within Kyrgyzstan), Vorukh (Tajikistan within Kyrgyzstan), and Shakhimardan (Uzbekistan within Kyrgyzstan) have repeatedly proven problematic, particularly when countries enforce strict border regulations in response to disputes and disagreements over demarcation arrangements. These enclaves have been hotbeds for conflict: between 1989 and 2009, the Ferghana Valley witnessed approximately 20 armed conflicts, and in 2014 alone, Kyrgyzstan reported 37 border incidents.

8 months ago

Aral Sea Parallels Loom Over Lake Balkhash

Located 175 miles north-west of the country’s largest city, Almaty, Kazakhstan’s Lake Balkhash is the fifteenth largest lake in the world. The remains of an ancient sea which once covered vast tracts of land, on its shores in the city of Balkhash, a mixture of around 68,000 mostly ethnic Kazakhs and Russians eke out a living, predominantly through fishing and mining. But like its’ sister body of water, the Aral Sea, Lake Balkhash is under threat with its inflow sources diminishing. Fed by glaciers in Xinjiang, China, the Ili River has traditionally accounted for the vast majority of Lake Balkhash’s inflow, but according to research, as of 2021 China was blocking 40% of the river’s inflow, leading to a rise in anti-Chinese sentiments in Kazakhstan. In 1910, Lake Balkhash had an estimated surface area of 23,464 km². As recently as the 1960s, fishermen were netting a catch of over 30,000 tons annually, but by the 1990s, this had fallen to 6,600 tons of significantly less sought-after types of fish. Between 1970 and 1987 alone, the water level fell by 2.2 meters, with projects aimed at halting this decline abandoned as the Soviet Union fell into stagnation before dissolving. Currently, the lake covers a surface area of between 16,400 and 17,000 km². Falling water levels have also led to the appearance of new islands and impacted biodiversity, with 12 types of bird and 22 vertebrates indigenous to the region listed in the Red Book of Kazakhstan as endangered, whilst the Caspian tiger is, in all likelihood, extinct. Meanwhile, contamination from mining, both local and upstream in China, have led to the lake being classified as “very dirty.”[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image="12326" img_size="full" el_class="scond-image" parallax_scroll="no" woodmart_inline="no"][vc_column_text woodmart_inline="no" text_larger="no"]With desertification now affecting one-third of the Balkhash-Alakol Basin, which includes Almaty, the resultant dust storms are leading to an increase in the lake’s salinity, with silt from these storms further affecting inflow. Parallels to the Aral Sea – arguably the worst man-made environmental disaster in modern history – are all too apparent. Spanning across Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the Aral Sea was once the fourth largest inland body of water in the world, covering 68,000 km². The destruction of the Aral Sea first dates back as far as the U.S. Civil War, when, finding his supply of American cotton under threat, the Russian tsar decided to use the sea’s tributaries to irrigate Central Asia and create his own cotton bowl. With 1.8 million liters of water needed for every bale of cotton, the water soon began to run out. By 2007, the Aral had shrunk to one-tenth its original size. Up until the late-1990s, the land surrounding the Aral Sea was still cotton fields; today, it’s largely an expanse of salinized grey emptiness. The desiccation of the landscape has led to vast toxic dust-storms that ravage around 1.5 million square kilometers. Spreading nitrates and carcinogens, these storms - visible from space - used to occur once every five years, but now strike ten times a year.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image="13441" img_size="full"...

8 months ago

“At a Crossroads” – Atlantic Council Addresses Rare Earth Elements in Central Asia

On January 23rd, the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and the International Tax and Investment Center gathered together the authors of the report, “Leveraging Central Asia’s Rare Earth Elements for Economic Growth.” The report highlights the potential of Central Asia, which has remained underappreciated in terms of its rare earth elements (REE) resources, despite its increasing geopolitical significance. China currently dominates the global mining and refining of REEs, giving it a near-monopoly status. The report argues that this scenario calls for an urgent need to diversify global supply chains and suggests that Western investment could play a pivotal role in exploring and mining Central Asia's REEs, thereby contributing to the diversification of supply chains. Furthermore, such investment could have far-reaching implications for the region itself, bolstering regional integration and sovereignty, spurring economic growth, and enhancing economic freedom throughout Central Asia. Opening the discussion, Ariel Cohen, a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Eurasia Center of the Atlantic Council, highlighted the critical geopolitical location of Central Asia, stating that REEs “may be the next big thing in Central Asia at the engine of economic growth.” Cohen praised the “visionary multi-vector policy pioneered” in Kazakhstan by President Tokayev, and characterized Kazakhstan’s relationship with Russia as “very fraught,” and defined by “multi-generational trauma. Nuclear energy is zero emission energy,” he said, but for the U.S. to capitalize on opportunities for mining REEs in Kazakhstan, “we need to do more and better.” The President of Second Floor Strategies, a public policy consulting company, Wilder Alejandro Sánchez emphasized that Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are the most “forward-looking” nations in Central Asia in regard to REEs, whilst mining in Kyrgyzstan remains stuck in a “legal limbo,” and Tajikistan currently lacks the necessary critical infrastructure. Nether the less, he stated, REEs could become a driving factor behind regional “cooperation and integration.” Wesley Hill, an International Program Manager at the Energy, Growth, and Security Program of the International Tax and Investment Center, spoke about the international relations components of REEs. “In the same way we competed and continued to compete for other energy resources, most especially crude oil, we will be competing for REEs,” he stated. “It's happening already, this geopolitical clash [which is] primarily driven by competition between the United States and China. After the publication of this report, Beijing cut off all exports of rare earth element refining technologies to the United States. Central Asia is very much at a crossroads,” he stated. Addressing this geopolitical conflict with China over REEs, Ambassador John Herbst, a Senior Director at the Eurasia Center of the Atlantic Council, stated that Central Asia is a “critical region… rich in rare earth minerals [whilst] China is our principal adversary. They are not a friend of the United States.” Finally, Suriya Evans-Pritchard Jayanti, a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Eurasia Center of the Atlantic Council, characterized REEs as an “extremely important development opportunity” for Central Asia, particularly given “geostrategic energy realignment after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I think it's a geostrategic realignment opportunity for...

9 months ago