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Water Management

Kazakhstan’s Reservoirs Prepared for Spring Flooding

Kazakhstan’s authorities have announced that the country’s water management infrastructure is prepared for the spring flood period. According to the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, the total available storage capacity in the country’s large reservoirs exceeds the projected volume of snowmelt inflows, with the highest water levels currently recorded in the eastern regions. Flood preparedness has remained a priority for the government since 2024, when Kazakhstan experienced its most severe spring flooding in 80 years. The disaster affected dozens of settlements and forced the evacuation of more than 120,000 people, drawing sharp criticism of local authorities. In response, the central government intensified coordination efforts and preventive measures. As of February, the ministry reported that the total available storage capacity in large reservoirs exceeds 14.3 billion cubic meters. Projected spring inflows are estimated at between 9.1 billion and 13.9 billion cubic meters. The ministry also announced inspections of hydraulic infrastructure and ongoing repair work at 39 facilities. Major repairs have been completed at the Charske Reservoir in the Abai region, the Akzhar Reservoir in Shymkent, the Sholak Dam in the Aktobe region, and the reconstructed dam in the village of Stepnoye in the Kostanay region. In addition, riverbed preparation measures are underway. Under the 2025-2027 Roadmap for River Rehabilitation, nearly 167 kilometers of riverbeds in western, central, and northern regions have already been cleaned and deepened. In 2026, similar work is planned across six additional regions, covering approximately 193 kilometers. Kazakhstan has also strengthened coordination with neighboring countries. In 2025, a joint working group was established with Russia to address flooding and elevated water levels, including along the transboundary Ural River. The final forecast for water levels in the basin is expected in early March. According to Kazakh officials, the Russian side has stated that water discharges from the Iriklinskoye Reservoir during the flood period will not exceed 200 cubic meters per second. An emergency notification and monitoring system for transboundary water flows along the Irtysh River is also in operation with China, including regular exercises and communication checks. The Times of Central Asia previously reported that in 2025 Kazakhstan began releasing water from key reservoirs as early as January to increase available storage capacity ahead of the spring flood season.

War in Ukraine

Why Tajikistan Does Not Prosecute Individuals for Participation in the War in Ukraine

Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine has been ongoing for nearly four years, and media outlets have repeatedly reported that citizens of Tajikistan are participating in the fighting. However, Tajikistan’s authorities state that no criminal cases have been initiated against citizens on these grounds. The country’s top law enforcement officials have explained their position. At a press conference, Khabibullo Vokhidzoda said that over the past year no citizen of Tajikistan had been prosecuted for participation in Russia’s war in Ukraine. He noted that many of those involved hold Russian citizenship. According to Vokhidzoda, such individuals are legally obligated to fulfill the military duties of the country whose citizenship they possess. “Under Tajikistan’s legislation, we do not have the right to initiate criminal proceedings against citizens who also hold Russian citizenship and who participated in the conflict with Ukraine under an agreement with that country,” he said. At the same time, he clarified that if a Tajik citizen who does not hold Russian citizenship takes part in hostilities abroad, a criminal case will be opened. “The provisions of the Criminal Code of Tajikistan will definitely be applied to such actions. This is Article 401, Part 1 of the Criminal Code, which concerns illegal participation in armed clashes abroad,” the prosecutor general emphasized. He added that the agency currently does not have verified official data on such cases. Vokhidzoda expressed a similar position in the summer of 2025. Interior Minister Ramazon Rahimzoda confirmed that no criminal cases have been initiated in this category. “We do not keep records of how many of our citizens are participating in the war in Ukraine, and we have no obligations in this regard,” he said. For several years, media outlets have reported that thousands of Tajik nationals are involved in the conflict, with some estimates suggesting that the number of fatalities has reached into the hundreds. No official Tajik government body has confirmed or denied these figures. On February 12, reports emerged of the death of 26-year-old Karomatullo Odinaev. His body was returned to his native village of Basmand in Devashtich district for burial. In 2025, the remains of other deceased Tajik nationals were also repatriated. Tajikistan’s legislation prohibits the illegal participation of citizens and stateless persons in armed formations or military operations abroad. Article 401, Part 1 of the Criminal Code provides for a prison sentence of between 12 and 20 years for such offenses. However, individuals who voluntarily cease participation in armed groups before the end of a conflict and who have not committed other crimes may be exempt from criminal liability. Approaches to the issue differ across Central Asia. In Uzbekistan, a 38-year-old citizen was sentenced to three years in prison for participating in the war against Ukraine. According to the State Security Service, between 2022 and mid-2025, 338 criminal cases were opened over citizens’ participation in armed conflicts abroad. In Kazakhstan, authorities reportedly opened around 700 criminal cases in 2025 involving citizens conscripted into Russian military service, with several convictions handed down. Criminal...

TCA Interviews

Kyrgyzstan Between the Russian World and Global Chaos: An Interview With Deputy Prime Minister Edil Baisalov

Edil Baisalov is a politician who began his career as a civil-rights activist, became a prominent member of Kyrgyzstan’s non-governmental organization (NGO) sector, and is now serving as the country’s Deputy Prime Minister. In an exclusive interview with The Times of Central Asia, he explained not only how his views have changed over the years, but also how Kyrgyzstan is seeking to find its place in what he described as a rapidly changing global landscape. In Baisalov’s assessment, the global system is facing a crisis of democracy. “The world order, as we know it, is collapsing – or at least is under attack from both within and without,” Baisalov told TCA. “The era of global hypocrisy is over, and the people of Kyrgyzstan have woken up. “What various international institutions have taught us over the years – their lectures on how to develop an economy, how to pursue nation-building, and so forth – has been proven wrong. Throughout the 1990s, Kyrgyzstan was one of the most diligent students of the liberal policies promoted by the “Chicago Boys.” We followed their instructions to the letter. Kyrgyzstan was the first post-Soviet country to join the World Trade Organization in 1998, and we were the first to receive normalized trade relations with the U.S. with the permanent repeal of the Jackson-Vanik amendment. All of our previous governments followed IMF conditionality dictates to the letter, especially in deregulation, mass privatization, and all the austerity programs and budget sequestrations. We were promised prosperity; that the free markets and the invisible hand would take care of everything. But it did not work. “I remember it well: at the time, U.S. President Bill Clinton laughed at China, saying that Beijing needed to adopt certain policies, to liberalize, or that science could not prosper in a closed society. He claimed the Chinese model was doomed to fail, arguing that scientific and technological breakthroughs could only occur in a Western-style society with minimal state intervention. Yet today, we witness the triumphant rise of the People’s Republic of China. This is not only an emergence but also a return to the rightful place of a great civilization that has, for millennia, contributed enormously to humankind.” TCA: Does this mean you now see China, rather than the West, as a model for Kyrgyzstan to follow? Baisalov: It’s not about the Chinese model or any particular foreign template. What we understood is that as a nation, we are in competition with other nations. Just like corporations compete with each other, nations must look out for themselves. If our state does not actively develop industries and sciences, there is no formula for success. All those ideologies promoting the “invisible hand” – the idea that everything will naturally flourish on its own – are simply false. TCA: When did Kyrgyzstan stop taking orders from outside forces and begin making independent national decisions? Baisalov: We used to be naive about wanting to be liked by others. But not anymore. In the last five years of...

Power Struggle

Japarov Breaks the Kyrgyz Tandem

When Kamchybek Tashiyev returned to Bishkek from medical travel abroad after losing his post as Chairman of the State Committee for National Security (GKNB), as well as the deputy chairmanship of the Cabinet of Ministers, he returned to a system already being disassembled. Kyrgyzstan’s President Sadyr Japarov dismissed him on February 10, ending a five-year arrangement in which the presidency and the security apparatus were closely fused. The decision deliberately dismantled the governing tandem that had defined Kyrgyzstan’s power structure since 2020. The immediate question was whether this was a closing of an episode or the opening of a new one. The first wave of moves suggests the latter: a transition toward a more personalized presidency, with the internal-security bloc fractured and its succession logic unsettled. Japarov publicly framed the decision as preempting an institutional split. He explicitly pointed to parliamentary groupings that began sorting deputies into “pro-president” versus “pro-general” camps. Russian-language coverage has tended to present the episode as an effort to end a dual-power configuration, not merely to remove one official. This narrative implies that the state’s operative center of gravity had already begun drifting away from predictable office-holding and toward informal allegiance tests. Once such a dynamic becomes evident, according to such a telling, the preservation of regime coherence often requires rapid, coercive re-centering. Domestic Political Configurations The first domestic signal was indeed speed. Along with Tashiyev, senior security officials were removed, and an acting head was installed pending parliamentary procedures. The point here was not just about personnel but about the timing: the presidency moved first, then moved again, so that no alternative pole could consolidate inside the security institutions. If the system had been built around a Japarov–Tashiyev tandem, then the immediate dismantling of Tashiyev’s proximate layers was also a message to the broader stakeholder society that the presidency would decide who inherits the southern security networks and clan linkages. Japarov was clearly conveying a signal of dominance that ruled out negotiation. A second signal came through parliament. Speaker Nurlanbek Turgunbek uulu resigned shortly after the dismissal, amid reporting that he was politically close to Tashiyev and vulnerable once the security bloc shifted. Russian reporting treated the speaker’s resignation as part of the same chain reaction set off by the February 10 decree. This was part of a pattern whereby institutional actors in Kyrgyzstan’s domestic politics reorient quickly toward whoever appears to be winning in the short term. Loyalty is anticipatory because the penalty for backing the wrong camp can arrive through law enforcement, prosecutorial pressure, or reputational destruction. A third signal emerged through the revived early-election debate. The open-letter campaign and talk about a “snap election” did not arise in a vacuum; it built on a preexisting argument about constitutional timing and mandate renewal. That development provided a political vocabulary for testing whether the tandem’s first stage had ended. The credible possibility of early elections has destabilized patronage, compelling every member of the political class at every level to recalculate expectations. Every political actor...

Education

Kazakhstan Moves to Require Content Creators and Online Course Authors to Confirm Qualifications

Kazakhstan is preparing new legislative measures that would tighten requirements for content creators and authors of online courses who publish educational content. Under the proposed rules, such materials would have to include confirmation of the author’s relevant education or professional qualifications. The initiative is outlined in an official response by Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov to a parliamentary inquiry regarding the regulation of online educational content. According to Bektenov, a draft law on online platforms and mass media has already been developed, along with amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses. The proposed legislation would require users of online platforms who distribute educational courses or training materials in a specific field to disclose information confirming their qualifications, including details of a diploma or certificate. The government also plans to introduce administrative liability for online platforms operating in Kazakhstan that fail to comply with authorized bodies’ orders to remove illegal content. Authorities note that existing legislation already provides for advertising and selling unregistered medicines and prescription drugs. Bektenov stated that state bodies continuously monitor social networks and cooperate with the administrations of major platforms, including Meta and TikTok, to remove prohibited content. According to him, up to 91% of identified violating materials are removed from TikTok. Oversight is also conducted through the Cyber Surveillance system, which tracks advertisements related to pyramid schemes, online casinos and drug trafficking. Over the past year, authorities identified and blocked more than 13,800 pieces of content promoting drugs, more than 34,700 posts advertising online casinos and over 13,500 materials involving citizens in pyramid schemes. Access to the relevant resources was restricted, and site owners were issued warnings. The Times of Central Asia previously reported that members of the Senate, the upper house of parliament, had proposed introducing licensing requirements for content creators in response to widespread violations of the ban on advertising online casinos on social networks and messaging platforms.

Arkadag

Turkmen Arkadag Without “Unnecessary” People: Crackdown on Residents Without Jobs or Registration Intensifies

The “smart” city of Arkadag, developed at the initiative of Turkmenistan’s National Leader Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, has once again become the focus of a campaign to “clean up” its population, according to Turkmen.news. Local officials are reportedly conducting apartment inspections to identify residents who do not hold official employment in the city. Inspectors are said to be focusing on three main criteria: possession of a local residence permit, confirmed employment in Arkadag, and the degree of kinship with the property owner. The legal basis for these inspections remains unclear, but reports indicate that authorities are taking a strict approach, requiring individuals who do not meet the criteria to vacate their accommodation immediately. According to informal rules described by sources, a “proper” resident of Arkadag must be employed and registered at their actual place of residence. Only immediate family members, spouses, children, and parents are permitted to live together. Brothers, sisters, and more distant relatives residing in the same apartment may face eviction. A local source stated that even individuals officially employed in Arkadag but registered in another region may face restrictions. For example, a person who has secured employment in the city but is temporarily staying with a sibling could be required to return to their place of permanent registration and commute daily. The same restrictions reportedly apply to students. Those enrolled at the International Academy of Horse Breeding and vocational institutions are permitted to reside only in dormitories and may not live with relatives, including close family members. Legally renting accommodation in Arkadag is described as virtually impossible. Property owners are not issued permits authorizing them to lease apartments, resulting in an informal rental market. As a consequence, renters cannot obtain temporary registration, and no tax payments are made on rental income. This situation leaves newcomers in what sources describe as a legal vacuum: they may be able to secure employment but lack lawful housing options. Formally, purchasing an apartment is presented as the only pathway to full residency in the city. Individuals employed in Arkadag may qualify for a mortgage, but strict conditions apply. Authorities reportedly verify that applicants do not hold permanent registration elsewhere. An initial down payment of 10% of the property value, estimated at approximately $2,000-$3,000, is required. In addition, sources allege that intermediaries demand unofficial payments ranging from $2,000 to $4,000 to facilitate mortgage approval. Similar practices have been reported in Ashgabat in recent years. As previously reported by The Times of Central Asia, ahead of the 30th anniversary of Turkmenistan’s neutrality, inspections targeting visitors from other regions intensified in the capital. Witness accounts at the time described interrogations at checkpoints, alleged physical abuse, and raids at locations where day laborers gather. Developments in Arkadag suggest that comparable internal migration controls may now be taking shape in the newly built city. Arkadag was conceived as a symbol of modernity and national pride; the reported controls suggest it is also emerging as a laboratory for managing who is permitted to belong.