Features - The Times Of Central Asia

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Kamchybek Tashiyev

Kyrgyz Prosecutors Seek Nine-Year Prison Terms for Tashiyev and Seven Others

Kyrgyz prosecutors are asking an appeals court to send former security chief Kamchybek Tashiyev and seven other defendants to prison. A lower court convicted all eight in July of preparing to seize power by force, but allowed them to remain free on probation. The appeal is being heard by the Bishkek City Court, with the hearing taking place behind closed doors. Prosecutors are challenging the sentences handed down by the trial court. The “Letter of 75” case arose from an open letter signed on February 9 by 75 politicians, former officials, and public figures. The authors called for an early presidential election amid a dispute over when President Sadyr Japarov’s current term should end. Five of the signatories were among the eight people later charged with preparing to seize power by force. Before his dismissal, Tashiyev had been one of Kyrgyzstan’s most powerful officials and a central figure in Japarov’s government. Japarov appointed his longtime ally to lead the State Committee for National Security (GKNB) after coming to power in 2020, but dismissed him on February 10, 2026, saying the move was needed to “prevent a split in society” and state institutions. The dismissal ended a five-year governing partnership and was followed by personnel changes across the GKNB and other state bodies. Eight people eventually stood trial, including Tashiyev, former Prosecutor General Kurmankul Zulushev, and former parliamentary speaker Nurlanbek Turgunbek uulu. The trial court found all eight guilty and sentenced them to four years in prison with confiscation of property, but exempted them from serving the prison terms and placed them under supervised probation for three years. They were acquitted of the separate charge of abuse of office. The Times of Central Asia previously reported in detail on the verdict and the circumstances surrounding the case. Prosecutors had sought nine-year prison terms at the original trial. According to defense lawyers, they are now asking the appeals court to impose the same terms on all eight defendants. Some of the defendants have also appealed their convictions and are seeking acquittal. During the appeal, the defendants again raised one of the disputed issues in the case: why criminal proceedings targeted only some of the people involved when the open letter had 75 signatories. Five defendants who had signed the letter asked the court to give a legal assessment of the actions of the other 70 signatories. The appeals panel granted the request and agreed that the other signatories could be called for questioning, with the defense responsible for securing their attendance. If prosecutors prevail, the appeal would reverse the main practical outcome of the July trial: all eight defendants were convicted of preparing to seize power by force, but none was sent to prison.

Data Center Valley

Kazakhstan Sets June 2027 Launch for First Data Center Valley Facility

Kazakhstan expects to launch the first facility at Data Center Valley, a large data center campus in the country’s northeast, in the summer of 2027. The government says the first 50 MW object now under construction is due to enter service in June 2027, while the site is ultimately planned to expand to as much as 1 GW. Earlier plans put the first 125 MW center in the first half of 2027; the latest statement does not explain how the 50 MW object fits into that figure. The project is aimed not only at domestic demand: Kazakhstan wants to attract foreign technology companies and is also exploring the possibility of hosting data belonging to other countries. The first data center is already under construction in the Pavlodar region, one of Kazakhstan’s main energy-producing areas. The main buildings are scheduled to be completed by the end of 2026, with commissioning work to be finished in May and the launch planned for June 2027. A 215 MW substation has been acquired to supply the site with electricity. The choice of region is primarily linked to access to electricity. The Pavlodar region is home to Ekibastuz, one of Kazakhstan’s largest power-generation centers, with a vast coal basin and major power plants. For data centers, particularly GPU clusters used for artificial intelligence, access to large and stable power supplies is critical. The stated 1 GW capacity is a long-term target rather than capacity already under construction. The campus is expected to expand gradually as customers are secured. Plans call for data centers, GPU clusters for AI, and cloud services to be hosted at the site. Among the project’s foreign partners is U.S.-based Firebird AI, which works with NVIDIA technologies. In April 2026, representatives of the two companies held talks in Astana on the development of AI infrastructure, high-performance computing, and data centers. Firebird AI later reached agreements on cooperation within the Data Center Valley project. The Times of Central Asia previously reported on plans to create a large computing facility in Kazakhstan using NVIDIA technologies. Technology companies may not be the only potential clients. The government is also developing the concept of a Data Embassy, which could allow foreign governments to store data in Kazakhstan while retaining legal sovereignty over it. Such a model already exists. Estonia established its data embassy in Luxembourg, where servers remain under Estonian state control and are used to store critical data and help maintain government digital services in the event of cyberattacks or other major crises. The two countries signed an agreement on the data embassy in 2017. Kazakhstan’s Data Embassy concept is still being developed. It is being considered alongside Data Center Valley, but the government has not said that foreign states’ sovereign data would necessarily be stored at the Ekibastuz campus. Data Center Valley itself is intended to host computing capacity and cloud services for international clients. Foreign investor interest in Kazakhstan’s data center market is not limited to this project. Singapore-based GK Hyperscale Ltd plans...

Water Security

Kazakhstan Seeds Clouds as Kyrgyzstan Questions Regional Impact

A small aircraft climbed out of Turkestan airport on July 10 with hygroscopic salt flares fixed beneath its wings. Operated by the United Arab Emirates’ National Center of Meteorology, it was searching for a cloud suitable for seeding. Pilot Ahmed Aljaberi described the aircraft as “specifically equipped with a cloud-seeding flare system.” But no suitable cloud appeared during the mission. Cloud seeding can try to draw more rain from an existing cloud, but it cannot make one from clear air. Kazakhstan launched the project in Turkestan on May 16, targeting more than 911,000 hectares of arable land in the country’s leading cotton-belt. The government puts the potential economic benefit at up to 35 billion tenge, roughly $75 million a year. The partnership gives Kazakhstan access to decades of Emirati experience in weather modification. The UAE program dates to the late 1980s, and Emirati specialists are training Kazakh meteorologists, pilots, engineers, and other staff. Kazakhstan’s government describes the Turkestan operation as the first project of its scale in the region, though weather modification in Central Asia has a longer history. Kochkunbek Bakirov, a geographer at Kyrgyzstan’s National Academy of Sciences, has described Soviet-era research in the Karshi steppe, the Naryn basin, and over Issyk-Kul. Kazakhstan also trialed a different approach in Mangystau in 2021, using an ionization-based system promoted as a way to increase rainfall. Its developer claimed the equipment had begun to influence local moisture. The Mangystau system used ionization; the current program uses aircraft and hygroscopic salt flares. Before operations began, Kazhydromet analyzed data from 39 meteorological stations covering 2020 through 2024, selecting the Turkestan Region after studying atmospheric conditions and terrain. Flights only proceed when naturally formed cumulonimbus clouds with sufficient vertical development are present, with Kazhydromet monitoring satellite imagery, synoptic data, and cloud development before operations. The aircraft releases salt-based particles into suitable clouds. Kazakhstan’s Ecology Ministry lists sodium chloride, potassium chloride, and magnesium compounds among the reagents. In hygroscopic seeding, the particles encourage liquid droplets to collide and coalesce, which can improve precipitation efficiency in a suitable cloud. The cloud and its moisture must already exist. By July 13, crews had completed eleven operational flights, mainly over the Otyrar and Sozak districts. Officials were still analyzing the results of each operation; the number of flights does not show how much extra rain the project has produced. Kazakhstan’s launch materials cite a possible 10 to 20% increase in precipitation under favorable conditions. Results elsewhere vary widely. A 2024 review by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found estimates of 0 to 20% additional precipitation in the studies it examined. The GAO also found that effectiveness remains difficult to evaluate and that suitable clouds must be present. The evidence is much stronger for some cloud-seeding methods than for others. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says the strongest recent causal evidence comes from wintertime glaciogenic seeding of orographic clouds, while Kazakhstan is using hygroscopic salts in convective clouds. Their large natural variability creates a weak signal-to-noise problem, making the added...

Internet Restrictions

Internet Restrictions in Central Asia: How the Five Countries Differ

There is no single Central Asian internet. Crossing a border can turn a freely accessible website into one that is blocked or reachable only through a virtual private network (VPN). The contrast is starkest in Turkmenistan, where years of censorship have created a black market for access to the open internet. Freedom House’s 2025 Freedom on the Net assessment covers three of the five Central Asian countries. Kyrgyzstan scored 47 out of 100 and retained its Partly Free status. Kazakhstan scored 37, while Uzbekistan scored 29; both were classified as Not Free. Turkmenistan has the most restrictive system in the region. The largest measurement study of its internet censorship to date tested 15.5 million domains and found that more than 122,000 were blocked. Researchers also identified filtering rules that inadvertently made more than 5.4 million additional domains inaccessible. Bypassing these restrictions has developed into a market of its own. In July 2025, VPN keys were being sold for around $50 a month, while access through a connection exempt from government filters cost up to $2,000. Turkmen officials were also alleged to have been involved in selling such access. Such claims are difficult to verify independently inside one of the world’s most closed countries. Even so, the market illustrates the effect of years of blocking: for some residents, a working VPN can provide access to large parts of the internet that would otherwise remain unavailable. The situation in Kazakhstan is different. The internet is far more accessible than in Turkmenistan, although the authorities also use technical controls. A study published by the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) found evidence that at least 17 news websites and 73 sites for circumvention tools were blocked between June 1, 2023, and June 1, 2024. The affected sites included independent media and major VPN services. Researchers also found evidence of Transport Layer Security (TLS) man-in-the-middle attacks, in which a third party intercepts an encrypted connection between a user and a website. This can allow the third party to read or alter the data passing through the connection. Similar technology prompted an international dispute in 2019, when internet service providers in Kazakhstan instructed users to install a government-issued security certificate capable of intercepting encrypted web traffic. Major browser developers responded by blocking the certificate or preventing their software from trusting it. Kazakhstan does not, however, operate a closed network. OONI found that some circumvention tools remained accessible, unlike in Turkmenistan, where stable access to the open internet can itself be difficult. Kyrgyzstan’s online environment has traditionally been more open than those of its Central Asian neighbors, though restrictions have increased in recent years. Freedom House kept the country in the Partly Free category in 2025, lowering its score from 48 to 47. It cited the detention of journalists and activists, as well as pressure on online media. Government control has also extended to internet infrastructure. In July 2025, President Sadyr Japarov signed a decree giving state-owned operator ElCat a temporary monopoly on international internet traffic. The decree set the one-year trial...

Former Presidents

What Do Former Presidents Do? From Akayev to Nazarbayev, the Fates of Central Asia’s Ex-Leaders

Central Asia has produced remarkably few former presidents who simply retired from public life. In Kyrgyzstan, former leaders have been driven from office, prosecuted, imprisoned, or forced into exile. Kazakhstan’s Nursultan Nazarbayev has followed a different path, largely withdrawing from public view after losing much of his political influence. Elsewhere, some of the region’s founding presidents died in office, leaving no post-presidential career to examine. The Times of Central Asia has previously examined how political succession has developed across the region. The fate of leaders after they leave office reveals another side of that political tradition. The architect of Kyrgyzstan’s early post-Soviet political model was its first president, Askar Akayev, who remained in office until 2005. Akayev introduced democratic institutions in Kyrgyzstan, but gradually tightened the pressure on his opponents as his presidency progressed. His rule was badly shaken by the Aksy shootings in 2002, which followed the prosecution of opposition lawmaker Azimbek Beknazarov and a territorial dispute with China. Akayev’s government had agreed to transfer disputed border territory to China, a decision fiercely criticized by the opposition. In March 2002, demonstrators in southern Kyrgyzstan demanded Akayev’s impeachment. Security forces opened fire during the unrest, killing several people. The shootings became one of the defining political crises of his presidency. In a 2003 referendum, Akayev significantly strengthened presidential powers at parliament’s expense. Economic hardship, unemployment, widespread corruption, and allegations of fraud in the 2005 parliamentary elections eventually helped trigger the Tulip Revolution in March of that year. Akayev had to flee, with rumors at the time claiming that he was smuggled out in the trunk of an official car, wrapped in a carpet. Criminal cases involving corruption were opened against him and members of his family in Kyrgyzstan. The authorities repeatedly sought his extradition from Russia, but were unsuccessful. After leaving Kyrgyzstan, Akayev lived in Moscow and taught at Moscow State University. In 2006, he became a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In August 2021, Akayev reappeared in Bishkek. He unexpectedly flew into the country and was immediately questioned as part of the criminal investigation into corruption surrounding the Kumtor gold mine. Afterward, he said he had come to Bishkek for a week and was prepared to assist investigators. “I came to speak honestly and sincerely about how we built Kumtor, why we built it, and what mistakes may have been made. The investigation will continue,” he said. In 2023, Kyrgyzstan’s Prosecutor General’s Office announced that the criminal prosecution of Akayev had been terminated because the statute of limitations had expired. Tajikistan’s former president Rahmon Nabiyev was also forced from power. The former Soviet politician lost power amid the country’s civil war in 1992. He died at his home in Khujand the following year, at the age of 62, reportedly from a heart attack. According to his wife, Nabiyev spent his final months in Khujand in conditions resembling house arrest and received a pension of just five rubles. While Tajikistan did not repeat the experiment of violently...

Cybersecurity

Kazakhstan Examines Data Leak Claim Involving 15 Million People

A database allegedly containing the personal information of 15 million people in Kazakhstan has appeared on the dark web. The seller is asking 0.5 bitcoin, about $32,000, for a dataset containing tens of millions of records. The seller claims the information was obtained after hacking the government’s eGov portal. Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development has not confirmed that account. Specialists are examining samples of the database and trying to determine where the data came from. The sale was reported by the Russian Telegram channel Mash. According to the channel, the file is about 2.7 GB and contains 47 million rows. Its description lists passport details, phone numbers, email addresses, places of employment, passwords, and scans of documents. The claim that the database contains information on 15 million people has not been independently confirmed. Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development disputes the allegation that eGov was hacked. It said a preliminary review had found no evidence that government e-services were breached, and that officials were examining samples of the data to determine where they came from. The ministry has also questioned parts of the database description. For example, eGov does not store scanned copies of passports in the form described by the seller, while digital documents have a different structure. The allegation follows at least two other major cases involving personal data in the past 14 months. In June 2025, around 16 million records containing the names, individual identification numbers, addresses, and phone numbers of Kazakhstani citizens were found to be publicly accessible. The Health Ministry later said the dataset had been compiled from various sources, possibly including the information systems of medical organizations. It said any information originating from medical systems dated from before April 1, 2024. The Digital Ministry later reported that the investigation had found no signs of a direct hack. According to the ministry, much of the information had been extracted in 2022, possibly by someone with legitimate access to personal data or by a third party using credentials that had been shared or stolen. The investigation into that leak has still not been completed. In April 2026, the National Security Committee said the criminal case remained under investigation. The agency disclosed no further details, citing the confidentiality of the investigation. The allegation comes just two months after police seized another large database containing personal information on nearly 16 million Kazakhstanis from employees of a collection agency in the Zhetysu region. It is not known whether the two datasets are connected. Investigators must therefore establish whether the database offered for sale is authentic and how recent its contents are. The 2025 case showed how information from different sources and different years can be combined into a single database, meaning a large file offered for sale does not necessarily represent a new breach. There is reason to take such reports seriously. According to KZ-CERT data cited by research agency Finprom, Kazakhstan recorded 9,400 information security incidents in the first three months of 2026. Nearly...