Kazakhstan - The Times Of Central Asia

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Military Training

Kazakhstan Military Training Overhauled with New Drone Forces Planned

Less than a month after 14 service members died during military exercises in the Caspian Sea, Kazakhstan has approved plans to overhaul conscript training and introduce new safeguards against abuse in the armed forces. The reform plan was approved at a Security Council meeting on October 21, with the main changes scheduled for 2027. The September 24 tragedy prompted an investigation that uncovered serious failures in the planning of the exercises and measures to protect soldiers. A wider inspection of the Defense Ministry has since led to 13 criminal cases involving suspected embezzlement, abuse of authority, and other violations. New Training System Aims to Reduce Abuse Beginning in 2027, Kazakhstan plans to divide its mandatory 12-month military service into two stages. Recruits will spend their first six months at training centers and the remaining six months in military units, where they will continue combat training alongside their assigned formations. The change is intended to help conscripts adjust to military life and reduce the risk of hazing. Political analyst Gaziz Abishev believes that separating initial training from regular military service will make it easier for commanders to monitor abuse. “Amid the chaos of a regular military unit, it's much harder to keep track of abusive behavior by people who are out of control. It will be easier at a training center. Officers will be personally accountable for the safety of conscripts,” he wrote on Telegram. The military also plans to appoint military counselors and an ombudsman for service members. The aim is to give soldiers and their families somewhere to turn when their rights are violated. Askhat Aimagambetov, a member of Kazakhstan's parliament, the Kurultai, welcomed the initiative, citing cases of violations of service members' rights and the difficulties their relatives have faced in seeking justice. “Now service members and their parents will have a direct, legally recognized advocate,” the lawmaker said. A New Drone Force The plan also calls for the establishment of dedicated drone forces and an expansion of the network of specialized military schools.. The move reflects the growing importance of unmanned aircraft in modern warfare, demonstrated particularly by the war in Ukraine, where relatively inexpensive drones have proved capable of destroying far more costly military equipment. Organizational preparations are expected to be completed by the end of 2026, with the main reforms planned for 2027. The wider inspection of the Defense Ministry is also due to be completed by the end of the year. Although preliminary findings have exposed serious failings, the commission's full conclusions have yet to be published. Kazakhstan's Military Capabilities in Central Asia Kazakhstan ranks 58th among 145 countries in the 2026 Global Firepower ranking, behind Uzbekistan, which holds 53rd place. Turkmenistan ranks 78th, Tajikistan 100th, and Kyrgyzstan 109th. According to Global Firepower estimates, Kazakhstan's defense budget for 2026 is approximately $5.84 billion, compared with around $6.21 billion for Uzbekistan.

Middle Corridor

Kazakhstan Expands Middle Corridor Fleet as Caspian Sea Levels Fall

Containers are piling up on Kazakhstan's Caspian coast as they await shipment to Azerbaijan. A shortage of vessels and weather-related restrictions are delaying cargo along the Middle Corridor, a trade route connecting China and Europe while bypassing Russia. Kazakhstan plans to acquire five vessels and has ordered another six to expand maritime freight capacity. At the same time, falling Caspian Sea levels are limiting how much cargo existing ships can carry and complicating port operations. Yerkin Nygmetov, CEO of KTZ Express Shipping, described the container backlog at the New Silk Way international transport forum, held in Astana on October 15–16. According to Nygmetov, adverse weather conditions can restrict operations at Kazakhstan's ports for a total of up to 75 days a year. Freight Volumes Rise as Vessels Face Delays The Middle Corridor, officially known as the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, runs through Kazakhstan, the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. From there, cargo continues to Turkey and Europe, including via the Black Sea. Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the route attracted increased interest from companies seeking to reduce their dependence on transit through Russia. According to Kazakhstan's national railway company, Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (KTZ), container traffic along the Middle Corridor reached 44,200 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in January–August 2026, an increase of 58% from a year earlier. A TEU is a standard measure of container capacity equivalent to one 20-foot container, approximately six meters long. During the same period, 419 container trains departed China along the route, compared with 228 a year earlier. The maritime section requires containers to be transferred from trains onto vessels in Kazakhstan and then back onto railcars in Azerbaijan. Waiting for an available ship increases delivery times, particularly during periods of heavy cargo arrivals. The World Bank has assessed the corridor's potential for growth. According to a study published in September, investments in transport infrastructure and better coordination of logistics procedures could more than triple trade volumes along the Trans-Caspian Corridor by 2040 and cut delivery times in half. The bank also projects that implementing the proposed measures could increase the combined GDP of nine countries connected to the route by 3.3% and create two million jobs. Kazakhstan Orders Vessels from China and Azerbaijan KTZ Express Shipping, a subsidiary of KTZ, plans to acquire five container vessels in 2026. Another six multipurpose dry cargo and container ships have been ordered from shipyards in China and Azerbaijan. By 2028, the company aims to expand its own fleet to 13 vessels with a combined deadweight tonnage of 96,000 metric tons. Deadweight tonnage refers to the maximum weight a vessel can carry, including cargo, fuel, supplies, and other variable loads. On October 15, Kazakhstan's Samruk-Kazyna sovereign wealth fund confirmed that two dry cargo vessels would be built at the Baku Shipyard under contracts signed in April 2026. Another four vessels have been ordered from China's Jiangsu Haizhongzhou Shipping Industry. Each is designed to carry up to 537 TEUs, with a deadweight tonnage of 9,900 metric tons. The...

Rare Earth Metals

Kazakhstan Opens $15 Million Rare Metals Research Center with South Korea

Kazakhstan is seeking to turn more of its mineral wealth into high-value materials for electric vehicles, electronics, and other advanced industries with the opening of a Korean-backed rare-metals research center in Almaty. The center, which opened on October 21, is supported by a five-year funding program worth approximately $15 million. Based at the Institute of Metallurgy and Ore Beneficiation at Satbayev University, the center will develop technologies for processing and refining rare metals. The project is being developed under South Korea's official development assistance program, with the participation of the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology (KITECH) and the Korea National Institute of Rare Metals (KORAM). South Korea has outlined a five-year funding plan worth 19.8 billion won (approximately $15 million) for the Almaty center between 2026 and 2030, including 2 billion won ($1.5 million) for 2026. Kazakhstan has substantial mineral resources, but extracting metals and producing finished materials require different technologies. The most challenging stages involve separating individual elements, purifying them, and producing materials suitable for industrial use. These are the processes the new center will focus on. The research is expected to be tested in cooperation with Kazakh mining and metallurgical companies. According to Satbayev University Rector Meiram Begentayev, research priorities should be determined by the needs of industry. “We expect our industrial partners to take an active role in the center's work. Their specific production challenges will help identify priority areas for research, while joint testing will allow us to prepare scientific developments for implementation in industrial production,” Begentayev said. At the steering committee's first meeting, participants discussed laboratory equipment, specialist training, and cooperation with industrial enterprises. The Almaty center was established as Kazakhstan seeks to develop its own capacity to process critical minerals. The country is holding talks with foreign partners interested in raw materials for batteries, electronics, and energy equipment. The Times of Central Asia previously reported on plans for the Almaty center in July. Kazakhstan has also proposed cooperation with Belgium on rare-earth metals processing. Authorities also plan to establish an internationally accredited laboratory in Astana to analyze mineral samples.

Art and Culture

Threading a New Canon: Interview with Batima Zaurbekova

How does an artist born in a remote village in Kazakhstan become one of the country’s most recognized artists? “I realised that if I put in the work, I can achieve everything,” says Batima Zaurbekova, a pioneer of Kazakh tapestry, as she walks through Threads of Heritage at the Abylkhan Kasteyev National Museum of Arts in Almaty. The exhibition runs from September 25 to November 8, 2026. An energetic lady with a strong personality and a playful attitude, Zaurbekova is the subject of a retrospective marking her 80th birthday and consecrating a lifetime of artistic production, at a time when Kazakhstan, event after event, is gaining ever greater international cultural recognition. Video: TCA. Narration: Naima Morelli. It is indeed a momentous time to be in the art world in Kazakhstan. At the forefront of the discourses on de-coloniality in the arts, and among those contributing to a new canon of contemporary art, Kazakh artists like Zaurbekova embody what is truest to their culture and local specificity, letting it flow in the global discourse. [caption id="attachment_58628" align="alignnone" width="936"] Detail of Batima Zaurbekova’s The Bride’s Farewell (2003). Credit: Naima Morelli.[/caption] The passion with which Zaurbekova describes even the smallest technical details reveals her deep love for weaving. That devotion is also a political stance in the face of the Western canon of art history. The reclamation of an art canon which would belong to Central Asia started in the second half of the 20th century, when artists worldwide challenged the relegation of textiles to the category of craft. Starting from the very local arts of felt and weaving, and against the canon of Soviet painting, a generation of artists recovered something that was truly theirs and called it by its name: not simply craft, but art in its own right, with Zaurbekova at the heart of that movement. [caption id="attachment_58629" align="alignnone" width="2560"] Entrance display for Threads of Heritage at the Abylkhan Kasteyev National Museum of Arts in Almaty. Credit: Kirill Fedorov.[/caption] A matriarchal line While today biennales and fair around the world look for those artists whose cultural background is legible in their art, it wasn’t always like that. When Zaurbekova began weaving in the late 1960s, her teachers strongly discouraged her from devoting herself to weaving. Her teachers, many of whom had trained in Leningrad and Moscow, saw her as a painter, at a time when textiles were still considered a “lower” type of art, and far too slow and demanding. “I’d spend fifteen hours every day for days on end working on just one tapestry, and my teachers would tell me: ‘It’s so slow! In the same amount of time you could have painted three paintings already!” she tells me, laughing. They used to scold her with a Kazakh saying for it: “You’re digging a huge well with a small needle.” Zaurbekova was born in 1946 in Furmanovka, in the Moiynkum district of the Jambyl region, and grew up in Merke, where her family moved when she was in fifth...

Tobacco

Kazakhstan Vape Ban Faces a Test Under Eurasian Economic Union Rules

Kazakhstan banned vapes two years ago, but anti-tobacco organizations now fear that new rules being developed by the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) could allow them back onto the market. Public health advocates have appealed to President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, accusing the government's economic officials of attempting to weaken the restrictions. Undermining Prohibition? Since June 2024, Kazakhstan has prohibited the production, import, and sale of electronic cigarettes, vaping liquids, and certain smokeless tobacco products. This includes snus, a form of tobacco placed under the upper lip. Violations can result in criminal prosecution. The EAEU, which comprises Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia, is developing a common technical regulation for nicotine-containing products allowing manufacturers to operate under common standards across several national markets. The Coalition for a Smoke-Free Kazakhstan argues that the regulation, being developed at Armenia's initiative, could create a legal basis for resuming trade in products currently banned in Kazakhstan. However, a version of the proposed draft prepared by Russia's Agriculture Ministry in November 2025 explicitly states that products cannot be placed on the market in EAEU member states where their circulation is prohibited under national law. Compliance with common technical standards would therefore not, by itself, authorize vape sales in Kazakhstan. It remains unclear whether this provision has been retained in the text currently under negotiation. A Boon for the Treasury The coalition also accused Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Economy Serik Zhumangarin of pressuring the Ministry of Health. According to the activists, he has been pushing for approval of the regulation despite the ministry's objections. In July, Zhumangarin met with executives from Philip Morris International, a multinational tobacco company with manufacturing operations in Kazakhstan. According to the government, the deputy prime minister supported common EAEU rules that would take national legislation and public health commitments into account. The company presented plans to establish a laboratory in Kazakhstan to test nicotine-containing products, with the facility also intended to serve markets in other countries. The tobacco industry generates substantial revenue for Kazakhstan's budget. In 2025, excise taxes on tobacco products totaled 330.7 billion tenge (approximately $735 million). During the first three months of 2026, Kazakhstan exported $42.5 million worth of cigarettes. The Hookah Lobby In spring 2026, Kazakhstan also debated relaxing its anti-tobacco legislation by allowing hookah smoking in licensed restaurants and other food-service establishments. Hookah smoking has been prohibited in enclosed public places since 2020. Supporters of legalization argued that the restrictions had driven the hookah business underground. According to their estimates, approximately 22,000 establishments offer hookahs. They projected that licensing would generate more than 16 billion tenge annually (approximately $35.5 million) in government revenue. The anti-tobacco coalition opposed the proposal. Its leader, Jamilya Sadykova, warned that licensing would effectively legalize tobacco use in places where the government is supposed to protect customers and employees from smoke exposure. In August, the World Health Organization supported maintaining the existing ban. Nevertheless, hookahs continue to be offered in cafes and specialized establishments, and customers are periodically fined during police raids....

CICA

Kazakhstan Proposes a Preventive Diplomacy Mechanism for CICA

Kazakhstan’s proposal to establish a preventive diplomacy mechanism presents the Asian forum with a specific task: determining who, with whose consent, and through what procedures can help reduce tensions before they escalate into open conflict. On October 15, 2026, at the seventh summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Baku, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev proposed launching a preventive diplomacy mechanism. The initiative came amid efforts to transform CICA into a full-fledged international organization and make its activities more practical. However, the proposed mechanism’s process for requesting assistance, powers, funding, and operating procedures were not detailed in the summit announcement. For Central Asia, crisis prevention has direct practical significance. Disagreements over water use, transit restrictions, or disruptions to cross-border infrastructure can affect several countries simultaneously. Even a technical problem can take on a political dimension if the parties lack agreed-upon information and have no way to discuss the situation quickly. Preventive diplomacy is useful at a stage when there is still room for agreement, but routine working contacts are no longer sufficient. CICA already has a foundation for such work. Its activities are based on sovereign equality, noninterference, and consensus-based decision-making. The Catalogue of Confidence Building Measures covers military-political, economic, environmental, and human issues, as well as new challenges and threats. Its agenda includes transport corridors, energy security, and cooperation in the digital sphere. Discussions on crisis prevention can therefore be linked to existing areas of cooperation. As Aigerim Bakhtiyarova, deputy director of the Institute of Applied Research and Analytics at the Academy of Public Administration under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, noted in comments to The Times of Central Asia, differences in the foreign policy doctrines and geopolitical positions of CICA member states do not diminish their shared interest in regional security. “Today, strategic predictability has become a very rare but very important condition for multilateral partnership, essential for peace, stability, and development,” the expert said. In her assessment, even countries engaged in open rivalry have an interest in maintaining channels of communication that can prevent conflicts from spreading and limit the associated economic and humanitarian costs. However, a shared interest in preventing conflicts does not necessarily mean that states are prepared to grant additional powers to a multilateral mechanism. The principle of consensus creates conditions for trust while also setting limits on the future mechanism. When members’ interests diverge, agreeing on a collective position may take longer than the pace of a developing crisis allows. Therefore, in developing the initiative, it is important to determine which actions require a separate decision by all member states and which can be carried out under a previously agreed mandate, at the request and with the consent of the parties directly concerned. The following are possible approaches to implementing the proposal, rather than announced components of the mechanism. One realistic option could be a system of national contact points authorized to receive requests for urgent consultations. Their task would be to quickly connect the...