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EAEU

As Armenia Looks West, Could Uzbekistan Move Closer to the EAEU?

Armenia’s increasingly uncertain future within the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) appears to have entered a new phase. On May 29, the presidents of Kazakhstan, Belarus, Russia, and Kyrgyzstan issued a joint statement calling on Yerevan to clarify whether it intends to pursue deeper integration with the European Union or remain committed to the Eurasian bloc. The four leaders announced that members of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council would present a report at the next meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council in December 2026 outlining the possible consequences of suspending Armenia’s participation in the EAEU treaty framework. “We share the view that the Republic of Armenia should, within the shortest possible timeframe, hold a nationwide referendum on joining the European Union or continuing its membership in the Eurasian Economic Union,” the statement said. Speaking to journalists after the summit in Astana, Russian President Vladimir Putin drew parallels between Armenia’s current trajectory and the developments that preceded the crisis in Ukraine. “I have mentioned this before: the crisis in Ukraine began with attempts to join the EU,” Putin said. He added that significant differences between European and EAEU standards, particularly in agriculture and industry, make simultaneous participation in both integration projects difficult. “Combining the two is practically impossible,” Putin said. “Therefore, we would be forced to curtail much of our economic integration work with Armenia.” The following day, Russia recalled its ambassador to Armenia for consultations amid Yerevan’s growing engagement with the European Union. According to Russian political analyst Arkady Dubnov, the move was a clear diplomatic signal of Moscow’s dissatisfaction with the pro-European course pursued by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s government and indicated a downgrading of bilateral relations. Dubnov also argued that Armenia’s representative at the Astana summit, Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan, avoided harsher criticism from Putin partly because of the position taken by Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. “Kazakhstan itself signed an Enhanced Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with the European Union in 2020,” Dubnov noted, suggesting that arguments about Armenia’s European integration harming the EAEU are largely political rather than economic in nature. One recent poll appears to reinforce confidence within Armenia’s ruling camp. A survey conducted ahead of parliamentary elections indicates that Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party could secure nearly 65% of decided voters, positioning it for a convincing victory and a substantial parliamentary majority. Against that backdrop, Moscow’s pressure on Yerevan may be less about influencing the outcome of Armenia’s elections than about preparing for a longer-term strategic realignment. Supporters of Pashinyan increasingly associate his political project with closer ties to Europe, a perception reinforced not only by European leaders but also by U.S. President Donald Trump, who recently expressed support for Pashinyan’s re-election campaign. For his part, Pashinyan appears focused on a broader regional recalibration. Speaking via Facebook Live on May 31, he emphasized the importance of normalizing relations with neighboring states. “I am convinced that we will achieve the goal of normalizing relations with Azerbaijan and Türkiye,” he said. “This means that a balanced and balancing...

Kazakhstan AI Development Takes Center Stage at EAEU Forum

Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has urged Eurasian Economic Union member states to accelerate the use of artificial intelligence across trade, logistics, industry, and agriculture, as Astana seeks to turn Kazakhstan AI development into a wider regional agenda. Speaking on May 28 at the plenary session of the Fifth Eurasian Economic Forum in Astana, titled “The EAEU in the Global Digital Race: Betting on Artificial Intelligence,” Tokayev said digital transformation would be a decisive factor in the bloc’s global competitiveness. The EAEU is a Russia-led bloc of countries which also includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan. “It is critically important to intensify the adoption of new technologies, primarily artificial intelligence, in trade and logistics,” Tokayev said. According to the Kazakh president, integrating national digital systems would allow member states to speed up customs procedures, process documents in real time, forecast cargo flows, and identify logistical bottlenecks. Tokayev also called for the mutual recognition of digital signatures across the EAEU, arguing that such a step could significantly reduce business costs and increase trade volumes within the bloc. He said the analytical capabilities of artificial intelligence could play a major role in strengthening industrial cooperation within the union, modernizing agriculture, and improving regional food security. “The comprehensive application of new technologies will become the most important factor in ensuring dynamic economic growth for EAEU member states,” Tokayev said. At the same time, the president warned that AI development should not deepen the “digital divide” between countries within the union. During the forum, EAEU leaders were expected to adopt a joint declaration on the responsible development of artificial intelligence, an initiative first proposed by Kazakhstan in December 2025. The document is intended to establish common approaches to economic digitalization and the safe deployment of AI technologies while taking into account the interests of all member states. Tokayev said the current transformation of the global economy creates a “unique window of opportunity” for EAEU countries. Citing international estimates, he noted that artificial intelligence could add approximately $7 trillion to global GDP over the next decade. “The key question is whether we will be able to use digital technologies as an effective instrument for accelerated economic and social development,” Tokayev said. Kazakhstan has increasingly promoted initiatives related to AI regulation and development in recent years, seeking to position itself as Central Asia’s leading AI hub. That said, its progress so far has been strongest in state-led digitalization rather than in globally competitive private-sector AI development. In the 2025 Oxford Insights Government AI Readiness Index, Kazakhstan ranked 60th out of 195 countries, up from 76th the previous year, making it the highest-ranked country in Central Asia. The government has declared 2026 the Year of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development, created a dedicated AI ministry, established an AI Development Council, and promoted the development of national computing infrastructure, including NVIDIA-based supercomputers and expanded data-center capacity. Authorities have also backed Alem.ai, an international AI center in Astana that includes education programs, startup support, research labs, and a planned AI research...

EAEU

Putin’s Astana Visit Shows What Russia Still Wants From Kazakhstan

The Eurasian Economic Union summit in Astana gave Vladimir Putin's state visit a wider stage. The summit produced technical documents and familiar language about integration. The bilateral Russia-Kazakhstan package around it was more concrete. It showed what Moscow still wants from Kazakhstan, and what Astana expects in return. The detail lies in infrastructure, where contracts can last for decades. The setting echoed history. Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia signed the treaty creating the Eurasian Economic Union in Astana on May 29, 2014, with Armenia joining in January 2015, and Kyrgyzstan in August of the same year. In 2026, the bloc returned to Astana for the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council and the V Eurasian Economic Forum. The theme of the forum was artificial intelligence, digital regulation, and the EAEU's place in the global technology race. Its website said 14 integration documents were signed on the sidelines, including memoranda, agreements, protocols, and joint action plans. Those documents gave the visit a regional frame. The larger result came on May 28, when Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and Putin oversaw a broad set of bilateral agreements. Akorda listed nuclear power, Russian export credit, expanded oil-sector cooperation, a tenge-ruble currency swap, education projects, financial monitoring, transport digitalization, and nuclear safety regulation. That package points to the real agenda: energy, transit, payments, industrial production, and public-facing alliance language. For Moscow, Kazakhstan’s primary value is geographic: it sits between Russia and China, and across routes that connect Central Asia to Europe, the Caspian, and South Asia. Russian crude already crosses Kazakhstan on the Priirtyshsk-Atasu-Alashankou route to China. A KazTransOil contract keeps transit at 10 million tons a year until the end of 2033. The tariff is $15 per ton, excluding VAT. The Atasu-Alashankou pipeline has a design capacity of 20 million tons a year and belongs to Kazakhstan-China Pipeline LLP, a 50-50 venture between KazTransOil and China National Oil and Gas Exploration and Development Company. Reuters has reported that Russia and Kazakhstan agreed last year to raise that flow by 2.5 million tons, although the extra volume had not started flowing before Putin’s visit. The new agreement on oil-sector cooperation gives the issue a political push. For Moscow, the route strengthens access to China as Western sanctions keep pressure on Russian exports and payments. For Kazakhstan, it brings fees and gives Astana a useful position in Russia-China energy flows. The nuclear agreement, meanwhile, gives Russia a long-term role in Kazakhstan’s shift to nuclear power. Kazakhstan and Russia signed a $16.5 billion agreement for the Balkhash nuclear power plant at Ulken, near Lake Balkhash. The project covers two VVER-1200 III+ reactors. Kazakhstan held a groundbreaking ceremony for the plant in August 2025, with the active construction phase expected to begin in 2027, and the first reactor expected in early 2034. Russia will provide export credit for the first plant, with Rosatom leading the Balkhash project after competition with China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), France’s EDF, and Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power. But Kazakhstan has not handed the wider program to Moscow....

EAEU

EAEU Leaders Meet in Astana Amid Growing Internal Trade Disputes

Astana is hosting Eurasian Economic Union events on May 28-29, with leaders arriving on Thursday and the main meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council scheduled for Friday, May 29. The first part of Thursday was dominated by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and his delegation during Putin’s state visit to Kazakhstan. At the Palace of Independence, Tokayev and Putin introduced their official delegations to each other during the Russian president’s state visit, while Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov said the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council meeting would begin on Friday morning in narrow and expanded formats. The Supreme Eurasian Economic Council is the highest body of the Eurasian Economic Union, which came into force on January 1, 2015. Now more than a decade old, the bloc is facing deepening internal contradictions driven largely by external economic pressure on Russia, the Union’s core member. Some of those tensions are linked to the bloc’s expansion beyond its original Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan core. To understand the current state of Eurasian integration, it is necessary to revisit its origins, particularly the role played by Kazakhstan and its first president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, who had sought to preserve a looser union among the Soviet republics as the USSR collapsed. As prime minister and later president of the Kazakh SSR, Nazarbayev understood the economic consequences that would follow the collapse of the integrated Soviet economic system, and how deeply Kazakhstan remained tied to Soviet-era supply chains, infrastructure, and decision-making structures centered in Moscow. Nazarbayev first publicly proposed the idea of Eurasian integration in 1994 during a lecture at Moscow State University. At the time, however, the administration of Russian President Boris Yeltsin showed little interest in the concept. That changed after Vladimir Putin came to power. In 2001, the Eurasian Economic Community, known as EurAsEC, was established, bringing together Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan. The founding agreement had been signed in Astana in October 2000. Uzbekistan joined EurAsEC in 2006, but suspended its membership only two years later. Meanwhile, Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan launched work in 2007 on creating a Customs Union, which officially came into existence in 2010. In the autumn of 2011, Putin announced plans to establish a Eurasian Economic Union based on a future Single Economic Space. Two years later, Nazarbayev proposed dissolving EurAsEC in connection with the planned creation of the EAEU by Russia, Kazakhstan, and Belarus. Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Armenia were invited to join the Customs Union. However, by 2014, when the treaty establishing the EAEU and dissolving EurAsEC was signed, neither Armenia nor Kyrgyzstan had initially been central to the Eurasian project. At that stage, much of the discussion revolved around the possible accession of Ukraine. Russian political commentator and current State Duma deputy Anatoly Wasserman devoted several books to the idea of integrating Ukraine into the Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan project, including Ukraine and the Rest of Russia. Wasserman argued that Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine needed to move away from a raw-materials-based economic model by creating a unified market...

Fuel prices

Why Oil-Rich Kazakhstan Is Bracing for Higher Fuel Prices

Fuel prices in Kazakhstan are expected to rise significantly, according to Kazakh energy analysts. Although the country remains a major oil exporter and plans to expand its refining capacity, analysts warn that these measures alone will not resolve the structural problems behind rising fuel costs. Some Kazakh energy analysts have already described 2026 as “the final year of cheap gasoline” before Kazakhstan becomes more closely integrated into the Eurasian Economic Union’s common oil and petroleum products market. The situation is further complicated by the conflict in the Middle East, which has added volatility to global oil markets. For Kazakhstan, however, the deeper problem is domestic: low-regulated prices, refinery constraints, gray-market exports, and the rising cost of crude. Higher fuel prices also carry particular political sensitivity. The unrest that shook the country in January 2022 was triggered by a sharp increase in liquefied petroleum gas prices. Any new surge in gasoline or diesel costs could ripple through the economy, accelerating inflation and increasing social tensions. A Politically Explosive Commodity Kazakhstan’s leadership learned the political risks of fuel pricing during the January 2022 crisis, when protests erupted in the western city of Zhanaozen after liquefied petroleum gas prices rose sharply. Although the government quickly intervened and blamed unscrupulous suppliers, the protests rapidly escalated into nationwide unrest. Over several days, 238 people were killed, government buildings and security facilities were seized in multiple cities, and the country faced its worst political crisis since independence. In response, the authorities imposed a 180-day moratorium on fuel price increases, with some restrictions lasting even longer. Even then, it was clear that artificially suppressing fuel prices required substantial state subsidies, while the cost of oil extraction continued to rise. The “Last Year” of Cheap Fuel? Earlier this year, Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Energy warned that domestic fuel prices would need to gradually move closer to those in Russia by the end of 2026. Officials linked the expected price convergence to the planned launch of the EAEU’s common oil and petroleum products market on January 1, 2027. At current exchange rates, gasoline prices at Kazakh filling stations remain roughly half those in Russia. A similar price gap exists with Kyrgyzstan, encouraging the unofficial export of cheap Kazakh fuel to neighboring countries. In practice, that means Kazakhstan faces pressure from both sides: raising prices risks public anger, while keeping them low encourages fuel to leave the country unofficially. The Energy Ministry insists that future price increases will not amount to “shock therapy” for consumers. Officials say the transition toward a common EAEU fuel market will occur gradually through legislative harmonization rather than through an immediate equalization of prices across member states. At the same time, the authorities acknowledge that the large price gap with neighboring countries creates strong incentives for gray-market exports of subsidized fuel, increasing the risk of artificial shortages inside Kazakhstan. According to the ministry, the current low-price environment also limits investment in the sector. Significant funding is needed to expand the Shymkent, Atyrau and Pavlodar refineries and,...

EAEU

EAEU Summit in Astana: Is Moscow Pushing Armenia Toward the Exit?

Russian President Vladimir Putin is due to arrive in Astana on May 27 for a state visit, while the Eurasian Economic Forum and a meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council will take place in Kazakhstan’s capital on May 28-29. Against the backdrop of increasingly strained relations between Moscow and Yerevan, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan will not attend the summit. Armenia will instead be represented by Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan. Kazakhstan’s presidential administration has already outlined the agenda for the visit. Putin is expected to receive full state honors. After the official welcoming ceremony, Putin and Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev will hold bilateral talks. On May 28-29, Tokayev, Putin, and other EAEU leaders are expected to take part in the Eurasian Economic Forum and the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council meetings. Strategic Partnership and Growing Pressure Political analyst Andrey Chebotarev said the agenda of the Tokayev-Putin talks is likely to focus on implementing the declaration signed during Tokayev’s state visit to Russia in November 2025, which raised Kazakhstan-Russia relations to the level of a “comprehensive strategic partnership and alliance.” The declaration envisioned expanded cooperation in politics, security, economics, integration, high technology, and humanitarian affairs. According to Chebotarev, the two presidents now need to define concrete mechanisms for implementing those agreements. Among the most sensitive issues is the planned construction of Kazakhstan’s first nuclear power plant with the participation of Russia’s Rosatom. Astana, Chebotarev argued, is particularly interested in ensuring the continuity of the project as Western sanctions against Moscow tighten. Another key issue is the uninterrupted transit of Kazakh oil exports to Europe through Russian territory. “This issue is especially relevant given, first, the suspension of oil deliveries through the Druzhba pipeline, which the Russian side explains as being due to technical reasons, and second, the continuing Ukrainian drone attacks on the Russian ports of Novorossiysk and Ust-Luga on the Black and Baltic seas,” Chebotarev said. Other likely topics include logistics linked to the North-South transport corridor and the worsening decline in the Caspian Sea’s water level, particularly ahead of the planned seventh summit of Caspian littoral states later this year. Information Wars and the Golden Horde Debate The Putin-Tokayev meeting is taking place against an increasingly difficult information backdrop shaped by several Russian media outlets and commentators. Russian public discourse has continued to react strongly to the recent international symposium in Astana dedicated to the legacy of the Golden Horde, as well as to Tokayev’s remarks during the event. Kazakh political analyst Daniyar Ashimbayev, commenting ahead of Putin’s visit, argued that Kazakhstan-Russia relations were being subjected to “attacks and information provocations.” He described this as part of a campaign to turn Kazakhstan into “a platform for confrontation with Russia” amid the broader Russia-West conflict. He added that similar efforts were visible in attempts to inflame tensions between Kazakhstan and China. At the same time, Ashimbayev avoided publicly criticizing Russian opinion leaders, many of whom have become increasingly vocal in questioning the alliance between Moscow and Astana. Armenia’s Growing...