Foreign Affairs
Related: About this forumRUSSIA TO ANNEX UZBEKISTAN: CONFLICT EXPLAINE
I know most people haven't heard about this, but the Uzbek government is furious and the other 'stans are watching closely.
Chainfire
(17,549 posts)Something to get their minds off of the debacle in Ukraine. A quick victory in Uzbekistan, like the one in Ukraine is just what the doctor ordered. For the glory of Mother Russia, forward comrads!
tornado34jh
(922 posts)Ironically Uzbekistan doesn't even border Russia. But I will bet Turkey, given its pan-Turkic ideology, will not take this lightly from Russia. If I recall, the Central Asian countries (Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan), did not receive Putin well at one point. But let's face it, Russia want to recreate the USSR and then some. Now make no mistake, I believe at least two of those Central Asian countries has some sort of dictatorship in some shape or form. But again, Central Asia is rarely talked about. Except for the Baikonur Cosmodome in Kazakhstan, it's mostly unknown to the wider world.
lastlib
(23,247 posts)We see where that got him...........
Putin is the second-most dangerous man in the world today
getagrip_already
(14,764 posts)These youtube channels are blowing around like newspaper on city streets.
Anyone heard of him?
Is he credible? Russia really doesn't need another miscalculated war right now.
CloudWatcher
(1,848 posts)What he says doesn't conflict with what Google finds. E.g. from Reuters:
https://www.reuters.com/world/uzbekistan-summons-russian-envoy-over-politicians-annexation-remark-2023-12-22/
December 22, 20233:51 AM MST Updated 5 days ago
TASHKENT, Dec 22 (Reuters) - Uzbekistan's foreign ministry has summoned the Russian ambassador over a call by a Russian politician to annex the former Soviet republic, it said late on Thursday.
Russian nationalist writer Zakhar Prilepin, who is co-chair of the "A Just Russia - For Truth" party, said this week he believed Russia should annex Uzbekistan and other countries whose citizens travel en masse to Russia for work.
The Uzbek foreign ministry told Russian Ambassador Oleg Malginov on Thursday that Tashkent was "deeply concerned" about these "provocative" comments.
Warpy
(111,275 posts)He has an economics degree from Russia, did post grad work at the U. of Maine. He lived in the US for 9 years, returned to Russia in the 00s, worked as a mid level executive in a company that designed and built power plants. He left Russia in September 2022 when his superiors told him he needed to skedaddle. He and part of his family (wife, youngest child and mother) live in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
If you want to know what's going on in Russia, he's a decent source. He's a news junkie and as a trained economist, knows where to get the facts and figures it is now illegal to publish within Russia.
He's good on economic news, decent on social things, not great on prognostication. For nistance, he thought Putin would have flown out of a window by now, while I know there will be a power vacuum in Russia that will make the 90s look well organized, so anyone who wants to give him a shove is biding his time.
There are few sources in English for this stuff. He's worth listening to, along with Vlad Vexler.
(I discovered him when he was still doing travelogues in Rostov on Don and Moscow)
CloudWatcher
(1,848 posts)I think the Russian politician accidentally said the quiet part out loud. It's no secret that Putin longs for rebuilding the USSR, and the clip showed Zakhar Prilepin talking about annexing every country that supplies large numbers of migrant labor to Russia ... for example Uzbekistan.
The vision is to annex everything close to Russia and rebuild the USSR. Note Uzbekistan doesn't even share a border with Russia, they'd have to go through Kazakhstan to get to it!
Those who correctly observe that it's totally ridiculous have only to consider Ukraine.
Warpy
(111,275 posts)because the USSR plus the 'stans was never love's young dream, it was always a fractious alliance between Christian Russia and the Islamic states to its south, more of a tense truce than a partnership.
It would be even more tense now if it happened, and I seriously doubt it would ever happen. The 'stans know even more about being under Russia's boot heel than eastern Europe does,. and we know how little they want to go back there.
stopdiggin
(11,316 posts)to be found somewhere - that is willing to sacrifice just about anything (including commons sense and dignity) for his 15 minutes of fame.
(more than a couple showing up in Israel recently, but they're a species found commonly throughout the globe)