Despite its close economic, historical, and cultural ties with Russia, Kazakhstan has maintained constructive relations with Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. That diplomatic balance was on display again on August 10, when President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to discuss prospects for a peace agreement.

According to official sources, Ukraine initiated the call, and Tokayev reaffirmed Kazakhstan’s “unconditional interest in establishing a lasting peace in Ukraine based on the principles of international law.” Astana supports a “joint search for a peaceful solution on a fair basis” and consistently advocates compliance with the UN Charter, the inviolability of borders, and the territorial integrity of sovereign states.

Kazakh political analyst Marat Shibutov has suggested that Zelenskyy is seeking support ahead of a potential shift in the confrontation with Russia.

“On the eve of the meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Alaska, Zelenskyy is calling the leaders of other countries. He is seeking not only to secure better conditions for Ukraine, but also to understand what his personal political future holds. Yesterday, he spoke with Macron, Meloni, Tusk, Stubb, von der Leyen, Sánchez, and Starmer. Today, he spoke with Swedish Prime Minister Kristersson, Ilham Aliyev, and President Tokayev,” Shibutov wrote.

According to Shibutov, Zelenskyy emphasized European support for Ukraine’s participation in negotiations. However, Tokayev, an experienced diplomat, may have cautioned that the outcome of the U.S.-Russia talks is unpredictable. “They depend on domestic politics,” Shibutov noted. “In the U.S., Trump’s electorate wants an end to the war and military aid to Ukraine halted, while many in Russia want Ukraine’s complete defeat and elimination as a state. In such conditions, Ukraine will have to make concessions. Territorial integrity is good, but not at the cost of the state’s very existence.”

The official statement from Tokayev’s office cited the old proverb: “A bad peace is better than a good war.”

Support During the War

On March 6, 2022, shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion, an anti-war rally was held in Almaty. Participants carried Ukrainian flags, blue-and-yellow balloons, and anti-war posters. That same month, Kazakhstan sent humanitarian aid worth more than $2 million, including 25 types of medical supplies weighing 82 tons. Volunteers also collected food, hygiene products, medicines, and animal feed worth 150 million tenge.

Kazakh entrepreneurs delivered aid and generators to Ukrainian hospitals. In the summer of 2023, a Kazakh company helped repair a medical facility in Mykolaiv damaged by Russian shelling. The installation of “yurts of indestructibility” in war-affected Ukrainian cities also gained wide recognition. In Kyiv alone, more than 100,000 people visited such a yurt to charge phones, warm up, and enjoy free Kazakh national dishes.

Only According to the UN Charter

Kazakhstan’s deep economic ties with Russia include oil and gas transit, gasoline supplies, and imports of food and medicine. The two countries share the world’s second-longest land border, spanning 4,750 miles. Cooperation on transboundary rivers is also critical.

In contrast, Kazakhstan’s links with Ukraine are modest, consisting largely of historical ties and family connections. Pre-war trade was minimal, involving small quantities of textiles and confectioneries.

Nevertheless, Kazakhstan has refused to side with Russia. In June 2022 at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Tokayev stated that Kazakhstan does not recognize “quasi-state territories” such as the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DPR, LPR). He stressed that international law rests on the UN Charter and that the principles of self-determination and territorial integrity are in conflict in the war in Ukraine.

“If the right of nations to self-determination were applied universally, instead of the 193 UN member states, there would be more than 500 or 600 states. This would be chaos,” Tokayev said.

Russia recognized the DPR and LPR on February 21, 2022. Hours later, it launched what it called a “special military operation,” but which the majority of Western nations view as the invasion of a sovereign state.

Kazakhstan has repeatedly offered to mediate. In March 2022, its Foreign Ministry publicly supported a peaceful resolution between Russia and Ukraine.

Ukrainian Ambassador Controversy

Relations were strained in August 2022 when Ukraine’s then-ambassador to Kazakhstan, Petr Vrublevsky, told a Kazakh blogger that Ukrainians should “kill as many Russians as possible.” The comment sparked outrage in Kazakhstan, home to several million ethnic Russians.

Public organizations and the Assembly of the People of Kazakhstan condemned the remarks, accusing Vrublevsky of inciting interethnic hatred. He was summoned to the Foreign Ministry, and Ukraine later recalled him.

Another point of tension arose in 2025 when Ukraine struck the Caspian Pipeline Consortium’s Kropotkinskaya oil pumping station in Russia’s Krasnodar Territory. The CPC is vital for Kazakh oil exports, carrying crude from the Tengiz field to the Black Sea. In 2024, Kazakhstan exported 68.6 million tons of oil, including 54.9 million tons via the CPC pipeline, 80% of the total. The Kazakh Foreign Ministry said it had conveyed its concerns to Kyiv.

As the war continues with no clear end in sight, Kazakhstan’s ability to maintain open channels with both Moscow and Kyiv remains a rare diplomatic asset in the region. Whether through humanitarian aid, mediation offers, or participation in international dialogue, Astana’s careful positioning may yet secure it a role in shaping future efforts towards peace.

On August 8, Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a peace accord in Washington and committed to the construction of the Trump Route for Peace and Prosperity, a trade route that bisects Armenia, connecting the two parts of Azerbaijan.

The deal may have far-reaching repercussions on the other side of the Caspian, potentially diversifying the Trans-Caspian Middle Corridor by allowing travel from Azerbaijan, through Armenia, and onwards to Turkey.

The upbeat mood music may be premature, however. There remain numerous political hurdles to be jumped before any construction can commence, and the entry of the United States into a region where Russia, Iran, and Turkey all have interests could have unintended consequences.

“It’s certainly an opportunity, but there are risks,” said Azerbaijani political analyst and non-resident fellow at the China-Global South Project, Yunis Sharifli. “The United States can be a stabilizing force, but it could go in the opposite direction. It can also create a spoiler.”

The Problem

Armenia and Azerbaijan have maintained ice-cold relations for almost their entire existence as independent states. For over three decades, they tussled over the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, a land which lies in the internationally recognized territory of Azerbaijan, but was, upon independence, populated mainly by Armenians.

As well as costing thousands of lives and leading to hundreds of thousands of displaced persons, the enmity has also led to shuttered frontiers, which have choked trade across the South Caucasus. Armenia’s borders with both Azerbaijan and Turkey have been closed since 1993.

While Armenia has been cut off from two of its four neighbors, Azerbaijan has also been severed in two, with the exclave of Nakhchivan, which borders Turkey, separated from the rest of the country by a sliver of Armenian territory, just 20 miles wide at its narrowest point.

Conflicts in 2016, 2020, and 2023 saw Azerbaijan push Armenian troops from the region, with hundreds of thousands of Armenians fleeing Nagorno-Karabakh in fear of Azerbaijani reprisals. Since then, Baku has used its vast military superiority and geopolitical advantage to try to strongarm Armenia into accepting the construction of a corridor across its territory, threatening to use force on numerous occasions if Yerevan did not agree to its demands.

The Solution

Starting early this year, the United States began facilitating secretive negotiations between the pair, stepping into the vacuum left by Russia. The Kremlin has been sidelined from the process amid its deteriorating relations with both sides – many Armenians view Moscow as having betrayed them in the conflicts of 2020 and 2023, while Azeri-Russian relations have frayed significantly since the shooting down of Azerbaijan Airways Flight 8243 to Grozny earlier this year.

The timing of the signing ceremony, on the anniversary of the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008, was perhaps designed to reflect this shift in geopolitical alignment in the South Caucasus.

Baku and Yerevan have signed up to a project which will see the construction of the corridor run by a U.S. private company, but under the laws of the Republic of Armenia. The Financial Times reported that in the long term, it is set to include a rail link, oil and gas pipelines, and fiber-optic cables.

Pitfalls

Nevertheless, distrust and bitter enmity remain high on both sides, and there is still a long way to go before a full restoration of relations and the widespread opening of borders.

According to Benyamin Poghosian, Senior Research Fellow at the think tank, APRI Armenia, two key issues need to be overcome. The first is that both sides can interpret the peace declaration in different ways: both sides have agreed to form a corridor which should be operated under Armenian jurisdiction, but give unimpeded access to Azerbaijan.

“Azerbaijan will say, ‘in the declaration, we have unimpeded access, so I demand no passport and customs control.’ Armenia will say, in the same declaration, in the same article, it says the route should be operated under Armenian jurisdiction. So, we need territorial integrity, which means passport and customs control,’” Poghosian explained.

He notes that a similar declaration in November 2020, in which both countries committed to building a corridor that would be protected by troops from the Russian Federation Security Service (FSB), failed to come to fruition.

Baku also wants to see Yerevan change the language of its constitution to remove a reference that, in its view, enshrines a claim to Nagorno-Karabakh.

Captured military equipment from the 2020 Karabakh conflict on display in Baku, 2022; image: Joe Luc Barnes

“There are some articles in the constitution that can be changed by parliament, but the part that, in the view of Baku, makes territorial claims on Azerbaijan is in the preamble, and can only be changed via a referendum.”

Poghosian speculates that this is most likely to take place next year, potentially as part of the Armenian Parliamentary Elections in June 2026.

Consequences for Central Asia

The potential unfreezing of this route, under the auspices of the United States, could present a boon to countries beyond the Caucasus.

“It’s not only about the Nobel Prize for Trump, it’s also about the United States’ interest in creating new routes that are independent from Russia and China,” said Sharifli.

There is now a prospect that the Middle Corridor route could be simplified to involve just three countries: Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan (via the Armenian transit route), and Turkey.

This has the potential to loosen the leverage of Georgia, whose government has rapidly become Russia’s main ally in the region, while also providing an alternative route for Turkey.

Sharifli notes that while there are not necessarily any problems with the Georgian route, it runs very close to Russian troops stationed in South Ossetia, while key Georgian infrastructure projects, such as a new deep-sea port at Anaklia, will be built and operated by Chinese firms.

The Tbilisi-Poti railway in Gori, Georgia; image: Joe Luc Barnes

“The United States is engaging with Central Asian countries, particularly on critical minerals,” Sharifli told The Times of Central Asia. “They already signed an agreement with Uzbekistan on uranium, Kazakhstan will also likely see more engagement because Central Asia is an untapped market in terms of critical minerals. To import these resources, the United States also needs to secure the route.”

Others, such as Poghosian, believe that such a pitch is less based on economics than on Turkish-Azerbaijani geopolitics, and the real aim is to secure international funding and support to facilitate trade between the two countries.

Using the Trump Route as part of the trans-Caspian Middle Corridor is, he says, “mostly a geopolitical way to connect Turkey with Azerbaijan, to increase Turkish influence, and also to create problems for Iran. While many in Armenia would be happy to be part of big global transit routes, but there are serious concerns from objective experts about how much such a route would be used,” Poghosian adds, noting that the current railroad between Baku, Tbilisi, and Kars is running at “less than 20% capacity”.

Assylbek Nurgabdeshov, Assistant Professor of International Business at Edinburgh Business School, Heriot-Watt University, also puts the small scale of the planned route into perspective. “The Turkish government is building a railway from Kars to the border of Nakhchivan, but the capacity of that railway will only be 2 million tons per year. The capacity of Baku-Tiflis- Kars is now around 5 million, and they are planning to increase that to 17 million.”

Addressing Other Flaws

All this points to the fact that, despite the welcome signs from the Oval Office, the Middle Corridor has more pressing problems. The biggest bottleneck on the route remains the Caspian Sea, whose inclement weather, receding shorelines, and lack of ships can stop cargo for days on end.

“One of the main barriers is the number of vessels that are transporting those goods,” said Nurgabdeshov. This is exacerbated by the lack of a fixed schedule for crossings. He notes that while both Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are working to grow the number of crossings, as well as improving the digital and physical infrastructure in their respective ports, the lack of reliability can end up costing businesses.

The Caspian Sea has noticeably retreated over recent years. Aktau, May 2025; image: Joe Luc Barnes

“Someone who is sitting in Amsterdam wants to know in how many days the cargo will be delivered from China to Amsterdam. And they don’t care if the ferry crossing the Caspian will be full or not. They just want to know exactly what time their goods will be there.”

Nurgabdeshov notes that in the future, competition from the Northern Corridor – a route running through Kazakhstan, Russia, and Belarus – will remain strong despite tensions between the EU and Russia, and this is partly a reflection of reliability and corporate habits. Whether the Middle Corridor can survive in a future where sanctions on Russia may one day be lifted will partly hinge on whether it can prove to be equally reliable.

“If the Middle Corridor can prove that it is a reliable, less risky route, it has a chance to continue with the same amount of goods transportation when the Russian road is opened,” he stated.

Astana is preparing to host Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on an official visit scheduled for late 2025. On August 12, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev had a call with Pashinyan, during which, according to an official statement, he praised the “outstanding qualities” of the Armenian Prime Minister, “as a politician with strong political will and a strategic vision of the national interests of his state.” The forthcoming trip follows what U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio described as “the beginning of a peace deal” between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which was signed in Washington, D.C. on August 8, 2025, marking a pivotal moment in the South Caucasus after decades of conflict.

At the White House, Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed a framework pledging to respect each other’s territorial integrity, renounce the use of force, and dissolve the long-standing OSCE Minsk Group mediation format. The agreement also approved the creation of a major transit corridor — dubbed the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) — linking Azerbaijan’s mainland to its exclave of Nakhchivan via Armenian territory.

Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev welcomed the accord as a “historic achievement” that not only ends a decades-long military standoff but also creates space for a deeper regional economic and diplomatic reset. In recent talks, Pashinyan briefed Tokayev on the details of the framework, the decision to dissolve the Minsk Group, and the TRIPP initiative. Both leaders emphasized the potential for new investment opportunities emerging from the stability the deal promises to bring and agreed to maintain an active political dialogue.

For Kazakhstan, the visit reinforces its positioning as a neutral mediator between Eurasian powers, willing to offer diplomatic platforms for peace talks. In May 2024, Astana hosted ministerial-level Armenia–Azerbaijan negotiations in Almaty. With the TRIPP corridor set to enhance connectivity across the South Caucasus, Kazakhstan’s role in facilitating regional integration could expand beyond mediation into infrastructure, trade, and energy cooperation.

Economically, the corridor offers Armenia new opportunities to become a transit hub between Central Asia and Europe, while Kazakhstan could benefit from more direct westward routes for its exports. Previous bilateral meetings have already laid the groundwork for business forums and joint initiatives in transport, technology, and investment, and the visit could provide the political momentum needed to bring these plans to fruition.

Challenges remain, however. In Armenia, nationalist factions have criticized the peace deal, with border demarcation and the fallout from the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War remaining sensitive issues. Iran has also expressed opposition to the TRIPP corridor, citing concerns over shifting regional influence. Yet both Yerevan and Astana appear determined to use the current diplomatic window to solidify long-term cooperation.

As the South Caucasus recalibrates, Pashinyan’s upcoming visit to Astana will test whether the political optimism generated in Washington can translate into tangible projects. For Kazakhstan, this presents an opportunity to deepen bilateral ties, demonstrate its growing influence as a stabilizing force, and secure a stake in the region’s new economic and geopolitical landscape.