East Bazaar on the Russian military sites
With all due respect to the leaders of the Central Asian republics, which (the republics) were once part of a large state called the Soviet Union, it has recently appeared that the three of Rakhmon-Karimov-Atambayev go too far in exploiting their "fraternal" relations with Russia Federation. On the website "Military Review" literally every day materials appeared that concern the demarche of Uzbekistan with its withdrawal from the CSTO, but a suspiciously stable desire to remain behind the Russian air defense shield, or financial dissatisfaction of the Tajik president, who suddenly decided that friendship with Russia should be backed by more and more such a ruble. The situation is increasingly reminiscent of the classic blackmail, which aims to extract maximum profit on Russia's desire to defend its position in Central Asia.
Recently appeared next newswhich tell that the Tajik authorities have decided to recalculate the level of payments for the presence of Russian soldiers in Tajikistan. Mr. Rakhmon, apparently getting his own calculator, made his own calculations and came to the conclusion that Moscow should annually transfer to the Tajik state treasury, well or personally to Mr. Rakhmon, that in the case of Tajikistan, about the same, no less, 250 million dollars for a stay in the country of the Russian 201-th military base. And Mr. Rakhmon is clearly not embarrassed that the presence of this Russian base is, in fact, a guarantee of his personal security in this Asian country, as well as the security of the entire country as a whole. But can one really remember the average Central Asian president about the security of a country, if at stake a quarter billion, and even in the US currency. Obviously, in such a situation, all problems with Afghan drug trafficking, the possibility of orange revolutions in a single state, terrorist activity and other democratic benefits of modernity are immediately forgotten. It is forgotten until one fried bird bites any of the leaders of the fraternal republics in their soft places.
Of course, Emomali Rakhmon, with his many-time increase in the cost of staying Russian soldiers on the territory of Tajikistan, decided to simply exploit Moscow in connection with the recently concluded agreement that the 201-I base would remain in the Pamirs for almost half a century. In this case, only one thing is unclear: why only a quarter of a billion dollars a year? Why not a quarter trillion? After all, this amount would definitely have solved all Emomali Sharipovich's personal financial problems ...
However, the Tajik president is far from being one of a kind. We decided to take the same path in Kyrgyzstan, whose president, as we well know, has long been distinguished by the ability to bargain literally out of the blue. However, in comparison with the requests of Mr. Rakhmon, Almazbek Atambayev was still much more modest. But apparently, some Central Asian financial bacillus struck the Kyrgyz leader, who, through the eloquence of Republican Defense Minister Taalaibek Omuraliev, requested Russia to raise the rent for those facilities that the Russian Federation exploits in Kyrgyzstan. Objects there include:
radio lab in Maily-Suu;
test base in the city of Karakol;
communication center in the city of Kara-Balta.
At the same time, the motivation for raising the rent, voiced by Omuraliev, was as follows: they say that prices in the world are rising, inflation, financial insecurity, and everything else. At the same time, the head of the Kyrgyz military department said that Bishkek would not raise the rent for the base in Kant, since it (the base) fully satisfies the principles of the CSTO and is an integral part of this organization. How high is going to drive up the rental prices of the three objects of Russia, Mr. Atambayev, is still unclear. Russian military officials have already begun to count, fumble in their pockets ... But ...
Already literally a day later, Eastern logic manifested itself in such a way that it became completely incomprehensible what Bishkek wants from Moscow at all.
So a day after Omuraliev’s announcement that Moscow would have to fork out, information appeared already from Saparbek Isakov, who is the head of the department of foreign policy relations under the president of Kyrgyzstan. Isakov quite unexpectedly declared that Bishkek, in principle, does not insist that Moscow pay more ...
Well, what can I say ... One gets the impression that there are people working in the Kyrgyz capital who have not yet decided on the political and economic vectors directed towards Russia. It seems that Russian money would be desirable, but more, and at the same time, Kyrgyz officials understand that ultimatums with respect to Moscow today may not bring good results. Moreover, once Mr. Atambayev has already criticized the Russian authorities for the fact that they allegedly did not pay the rent for the deployment of Russian military facilities in Kyrgyzstan at all. Then it came to a scandal, which showed that Almazbek Sharshenovich was simply bad-badly reducing the financial balance sheets in his state.
Now they have decided to go the other way: Mr. Atambayev himself is still silent, but Kyrgyz officials express a completely lower rank position - if anything, it will, as they say, to whom to refer ...
So what do Central Asian presidents expect from Russia, who are turning interstate relations into a classic Oriental bazaar? Obviously, they are waiting for direct financial competition between Moscow and Washington for the right to call Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan the territory of their interests. And as soon as the eastern leaders "grope" that such a confrontation begins to take real shape (and judging by the not so long statements of the American ambassador to Russia, McFaul, the financial confrontation between Russia and the USA in Central Asia has long existed), so periodically “Taximeter” from Dushanbe, Bishkek or Tashkent to Washington, then Moscow. And here it will already be necessary to expect, from whom patience will burst earlier. Will the call for a mass democratization of the East (from the United States) go into action, or will the Russian strike option work with Mr. Onishchenko.
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