By Erlan Benedis-Grab

On August 23, 2026, Kazakhstan elected its inaugural session of the state Kurultai, following its establishment under Kazakhstan's constitutional changes approved in the March 15 referendum. Adilet, the party into which the long-ruling Amanat (previously Nur Otan) merged, took 71.17 percent of the vote nationwide and 110 seats out of 145, a decisive supermajority. Kazakhstan's constitutional changes created the post of Vice President, a new People's Council, and the consolidation of the bicameral legislative branch into a unicameral parliament under a party list system. The overwhelming victory for the ruling party confirms what the constitutional changes made close to inevitable: an expanded presidential authority under President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, in which he can wield the system for a variety of purposes.

BACKGROUND:

The process of constitutional reform began as a suggestion for parliamentary reform. In his state of the nation address on September 8, 2025, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev proposed abolishing the Senate and moving to a unicameral chamber elected entirely by party list. The process accelerated in early 2026. In January, Tokayev announced his intention to reform Kazakhstan’s constitution, establishing a Commission on Constitutional Reform chaired by Constitutional Court head Elvira Azimova, with Tokayev’s top deputy Erlan Karin as deputy chair. In February, Tokayev signed a decree, setting the referendum for March 15th. In March, voters approved the new constitution with an overwhelming majority of 87.15 percent. In July, the constitution took effect, terminating the bicameral parliament and triggering elections to the Kurultai on August 23.

Previously, Kazakhstan had a bicameral parliament consisting of the Mazhilis and Senate. The changes consolidated the two into a new unicameral parliament, called the Kurultai (meaning “assembly” or “gathering” of Turkic leaders). Additionally, the new parliament is elected entirely from a party list, replacing the previous mixed system of 70 percent  party list and 30 percent single-member constituencies.

A new quasi-legislative consultative body, the Halyk Kenesi (People’s Council), has been established, combining the earlier People’s Assembly of Kazakhstan and the National Kurultai. It is supposed to be a technocratic body designed to develop policy recommendations from the public. It is composed of 126 members, directly appointed by the president. It has the power to prepare legislation for the Kurultai and propose nationwide referendums, yet its functional role is likely to be limited. 

A vice presidency has also been created, with the vice president appointed by the president. This new position is first in the presidential line of succession, without necessarily making the vice president Tokayev’s successor.

The president will now nominate the Prime Minister, Supreme Court judges, and the Kurultai Speaker. Positions previously requiring Senate consent, including the heads of the Central Bank, the National Security Committee, and the Prosecutor General, now fall under presidential authority. These changes mark an institutional weakening of the parliament's authority.

The August 23 elections were the first contested by the Adilet (meaning justice) party, registered in June and led by Tokayev's former Chief of Staff, Aibek Dadebai. Following this, the ruling Amanat party, formerly Nur Otan, voted to merge itself into the Adilet party, making Adilet its successor as the ruling party of Kazakhstan.

With the apparatus of the Akorda clearly behind Adilet, it decisively captured 71.17 percent of the nationwide vote, taking roughly 110 of 145 seats. The OSCE commented that while the elections were orderly, they took place in an environment lacking political pluralism.

IMPLICATIONS:

Despite Tokayev’s promise of a “New Kazakhstan,” the constitutional changes affirm the dominance of Kazakhstan's super-presidential system. In this system, the president's formal powers so far exceed those of the legislature and the courts that no institution retains an effective check on him. The constitutional text now accommodates whatever Tokayev chooses to do with it, rather than constraining what he may do.

In his September 2025 address, Tokayev initially announced that reforms would take place in 2027. Instead, the whole rewriting process took around 6 months. Although Akorda framed it as a “broad nationwide discussion,” the constitutional text was likely engineered months or years before it was announced to the public. Given the rushed process, civil society in Kazakhstan, however limited, did not have enough time to mobilize significant opposition to the constitutional referendum. 

Tokayev is 73, raising the question of succession. The position of the vice presidency can be construed as a post for Tokayev to test his successor, or to withdraw from the presidency incrementally. 

However, even though Tokayev's presidential term ends in 2029, the Constitutional Court ruled that because the constitution was replaced outright rather than amended, terms served under the old charter do not count. Any election after the new text took effect counts as the first election. Kazakhstan’s single, non-renewable seven-year term remains untouched, but could carry Tokayev to 2036.

In appointing Erlan Karin as vice president, Tokayev chose someone whose political rise is tied to his own rule, rather than to the Nazarbayev-era patronage networks. Karin, a longtime presidential aide and former State Counselor, has been one of Tokayev’s most prominent political strategists. Yet the office could eventually offer Tokayev himself a post-presidential role. The obvious precedent is 2019, when Nazarbayev left the presidency but retained significant influence as Chairman of the Security Council. That way, Tokayev could wind down his leadership, passing the reins while securing his post-presidential position and retaining leverage.

Now, the elections to the Kurultai will be completely conducted through a closed party-list system, where the Adilet apparatus, and Akorda, handpicks their chosen candidates. Interestingly, this is a reversal of Tokayev’s own reforms submitted in 2022, mandating a 70/30 ratio for party-list vs single-seat constituencies. Its reversal signifies that Tokayev is past the early concessions of 2022, now rolling back the limited political reform of this period.

Neither system is entirely better or worse, but in Kazakhstan’s case this move clearly tightens presidential control over candidate selection. Candidates without the explicit support of the ruling Adilet party will be highly likely to be excluded from the new parliament.

Tokayev is also overhauling Kazakhstan's political machinery, merging Amanat with Adilet. Although Nur Otan was renamed Amanat in 2022, Tokayev wants a party that is unmistakably his own. Mazhilis MP Erlan Sariov put it succinctly, “Nazarbayev's fingerprints remain all over Amanat,” explaining why Tokayev would want a new party altogether. Yet there is no growth in pluralism, the party was molded from above rather than growing out of public demand. In truth, Tokayev gets a clean slate, a rebranded machine he can wield as he sees fit. 

Turnout was reported at 74.08 percent, twenty points above the 54.21 percent of 2023. However, the OSCE noted “significant differences between voter activity observed and the official turnout data”. The election was contested by several parties: the agrarian Auyl, the perennial opposition Ak Zhol, the “modern” Respublica, the communist remnants of the People’s Party, and the “real” opposition Nationwide Social Democratic Party, but Adilet captured the majority vote. The manufactured nature of these parties and their general unwillingness to oppose the government’s line could not seriously pose a challenge. 

CONCLUSIONS:

Akorda hopes to usher in a renewed Tokayev era with a new constitution, an updated parliament, and a decisive majority for the government, yet the core questions about Kazakhstan’s direction remain. Tokayev has reversed the chapter Kazakhstan opened during the turbulent year 2022 and the concessions then made by his government. The new constitution symbolizes that reversal; some changes are cosmetic, others engineer elite confidence in his rule. All of them empower him and the super-presidential system. Tokayev’s succession remains in question. The vice presidency can seat a successor, hold the chair for Tokayev himself, or stand by as he resets his own term, and the constitution now permits all three. Tokayev’s “New Kazakhstan” program may usher in increased modernization, efficiency and even transparency. It will not, however, undermine the dominance of the state. That approach may continue to bring prosperous autocratic development to Kazakhstan, but the public’s scorn over the lack of civic participation may build to a boiling point. 

AUTHORS BIO:

Erlan Benedis-Grab is a Junior Fellow at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute. He holds a dual B.A. in Economics and Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University Bloomington, and his research focuses on Central Asia, International Trade, and Energy Politics. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

By Nicola Ilario

South Ossetia's recent presidential transition, in which Alan Gagloev resigned in favor of Russian administrator Marat Kambolov, marks the latest step in a long-running process of Russo-Ossetian integration. The May 2026 "Treaty on Deepening Allied Interaction," marks a significant step in South Ossetia's integration, signifying Moscow's broader strategy toward Georgia and the South Caucasus as well as its limitations.

BACKGROUND:

On June 23, Alan Gagloev resigned from his post as President of the small breakaway republic of South Ossetia, taking a new position as an aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The move happened suddenly. Gagloev, in a televised address to the Ossetian people, claimed that after meeting Putin on June 22, he agreed to become an advisor to the Office of the Russian President. The next day he resigned. In his place, Prime Minister Marat Kambolov assumed the responsibilities of the presidency.

Kambolov is, notably, not a native to South Ossetia. A Russian national, Kambolov was sworn in as South Ossetia’s Prime Minister on June 17, 2026, but had until 2025 not been involved in the domestic affairs of the breakaway republic. Born in North Ossetia in 1965, he graduated from Moscow State Social University and the Russian Academy of Public Administration, going on to work in the Russian government. In May, he was tapped to be Gagloev’s advisor, and soon became Gagloev’s nominee for the premiership. Kambolov is expected to deepen Russo-Ossetian ties, implementing provisions of a bilateral treaty signed between Russia and Ossetia on May 9, 2026. Kambolov is expected to become the President of South Ossetia after snap elections planned September 18.

Kambolov’s ascension is part of a continuous effort of Ossetian aspirations for annexation into the Russian Federation. Indeed, since 1991 and with Russian backing, the Ossetians have maintained de facto independence from Georgia and alignment with Russia.

Generally, the South Ossetian separatist project is concerned with the unification of their people, whether it be within a sovereign state or under Russian rule. Indeed, the Ossetians are a transnational people, inhabiting Georgia, the unrecognized Republic of South Ossetia, as well as the Russian federal subject, the Republic of North Ossetia–Alania. As the vast majority of Ossetians reside in North Ossetia, it has been the wish of many in the south form a union with the north, to share a common state.

Ossetian demands for union with the north began in the early 90s, when the region broke from Tbilisi. In 1992, South Ossetia held a referendum that saw overwhelming support for independence by Ossetians and a 99.89 percent vote in favor for “reunion” with Russia.

Serious promotion of annexation did not begin until 2008, however, when Russia formally recognized the small de facto republic. After the election of Leonid Tibilov as South Ossetian president in 2012, it began making moves towards unionship. Tibilov stated after winning the 2012 elections that “We will certainly continue along the course towards Russia that has been chosen by our people – a course of further integration ... in all existing spheres, including the economy, as well as military, technical, and defense cooperation.” Other efforts towards union, such as the partial integration of the South Ossetian armed forces into the Russian army, also occurred during this period. In 2016, Ossetia signed the bilateral Treaty on Union Relations and Integration with the Russian Federation, strengthening ties between the two countries. Further plans for full annexation emerged at this time as well, with Tibilov suggesting closer union with Russia.

Plans for an annexation referendum did not pan out until 2022, where in March, South Ossetian president Bibilov announced a referendum following the 2022 presidential elections. Bibilov suggested it should take place the day after the presidential elections, thus constituting concrete executive action in contrast with earlier parliamentary debates on the organization of referendums. The referendum was delayed, however, by Gagloev who after winning the elections stated that the time was not right and signed a decree cancelling it.

Despite continued delays, Russo-Ossetian cooperation has continued with the culmination of talks leading to the signing of a bilateral treaty in 2026. On May 9, Vladimir Putin and Alan Gagloev signed a “Treaty on Deepening Allied Interaction,” which the Russian Duma ratified on May 13. The document outlines provisions that would enable Russian citizens to hold office in South Ossetia and establish greater energy, transportation, telecommunication integration between the Russian Federation and the de facto republic. In effect, the agreement would bring de facto annexation. Gagloev, the former president of South Ossetia, called it, a “step towards the reunification of the Ossetian people,” further emphasizing that “South Ossetians perceive Russia as [their] great homeland.”

IMPLICATIONS:

The recent appointment of Marat Kambolov as Prime Minister and his ascension to the role of acting president is a continuation of the integration and unification of Russia and South Ossetia, a process that has been ongoing since the South Ossetian war in 1991. Kambolov is a demonstration that Moscow is now installing administrators rather than cultivating local elites.

The events in South Ossetia demonstrate Moscow’s continuing exercise of influence in the South Caucasus, which is otherwise waning against the backdrop of its economic, military and political overextension due to its ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Russia has lost considerable influence in Armenia, as Prime Minister Pashinyan moves the country Westward and as President Aliyev of Azerbaijan continues to elevate Baku’s strategic autonomy.

This is evident as Gagloev noted that one of the reasons for the delay of the 2022 referendum was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As he stated, “I believe that the current authorities of the Russian Federation, represented by President Vladimir Putin, are still busy with other issues, I think with more serious ones.”

Setting aside Russia's insufficient political capital for outright de jure annexation, indirect rule is also part of Moscow’s strategy to manage Russo-Georgian relations. Since the Georgian Dream (GD) party’s rise to power in the early 2010s, Georgia began to employ a foreign policy that was multi-axis oriented, engaging in attempts at rapprochement with Russia. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the GD government refused to engage in the Western sanctions imposed on Moscow. GD likely believed that a swift Russian victory in 2022 was inevitable, and that maintaining friendly relations with Russia was Georgia’s most rational course of action. It is unclear whether there is a definitive grand strategy to GD’s foreign policy, yet the Georgian government clearly believes that cultivating better relations with Russia is in their interest.

This certainly incentivizes Moscow to maintain a friendlier attitude  Georgia, however, at the same time Moscow acknowledges the utility of both South Ossetia and Abkhazia in the relationship. By continually utilizing South Ossetia as a bargaining chip, Moscow can promise Georgia speculative future talks on the fate of South Ossetia, and in return Georgia retains a neutral, or even semi-positive attitude towards Moscow. Of course, Russia has no intention of giving away South Ossetia, yet this strategy continues to work as GD continues its attempts at a multi-axis oriented foreign policy.

CONCLUSIONS:

Georgia remains strategically important for Russia, which hopes to control a North-South Axis, from the North Caucasus through Georgia and Armenia, cutting through the Middle Corridor and further linking up with Iran. This competes with the ongoing establishment of a West-East Axis from Turkey, through Armenia/Georgia and Azerbaijan and further to the Caspian and Central Asia.

It is evident that Russia, at least under the current strategic policies of the Putin regime, will seek to retain its influence in the South Caucasus for the foreseeable future. Moscow’s approach to integration in South Ossetia demonstrates its continued interest in the region, but also the limitations to its capacity for fulfilling them.

AUTHOR’S BIO:

Nicola Ilario is an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania. He studies Economics and History, with a concentration in the history of diplomacy. Nicola interned at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute the Summer of 2026, assisting fellows in their research. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

By Stephen Blank

Russia's aggression against Ukraine has triggered an ongoing and deepening decolonization process across the Caucasus and Central Asia. As part of this process local governments face multiple challenges stemming from Russian policies to restrict their economic or political independence and retain or regain their imperial privilege. These challenges, however, are presenting new opportunities for both local governments and the EU to confront them thereby strengthening their mutual ties, regional security and economic development, as well as cooperation and security against Russian efforts to restore imperial domination in both the Caucasus and Central Asia.

BACKGROUND: 

Recent trends in the Caucasus and Central Asia are offering the EU unprecedented opportunities to extend and consolidate its influence. These trends stem from Russia’s difficulties in its aggression against Ukraine but they are clearly part of the longer arc of Russia’s ebbing influence in these regions despite its efforts to thwart the global trend of decolonization. These trends have the active support of local governments precisely because they allow them to enhance their real, not just formal, independence from Russia and establish mutually beneficial and long-term relationships with the EU. At the same time, should the EU exploit these opportunities, not only would it benefit from profitable trade, transport, and connectivity ties with local governments; it would forestall the recrudescence of Russian influence over the region, which is a precondition for Russian adventurism abroad.

These opportunities pertain first to the Caucasus, especially Armenia and Azerbaijan, and second to Central Asia. Thus, they span the entire territory of these two regions. Moreover, these are only among the most recent examples of EU presence here as it is increasingly engaged across the region. In the first instance, Brussels has asked Yerevan and Baku how it might best support development of regional transport and connectivity routes in the South Caucasus. Magdalena Grono, EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia told reporters that progress achieved toward building sustainable peace in the region had been "incredibly impressive."  Much of this progress builds on previous EU and U.S. efforts, most notably the U.S. Trump Road for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP).  In addition, the EU recently announced preparations for a €50 million economic support package intended specifically to assist Armenia in coping with Russian trade restrictions. EU President Ursula Von Der Leyen denounced Moscow’s “economic coercion,” accusing Russia of weaponizing economic relations for political purposes.

IMPLICATIONS: 

The political significance of this assistance is unmistakable despite its modest amount.  Beyond signaling a readiness to defend Armenia against Russian economic pressure, this transfer of funds represents part of a larger EU program of economic, political and institutional measures to reduce Armenia’s vulnerability and strengthen its independence.  Because Brussels recognizes that Moscow’s threats against Armenia will not stop at economic coercion, it is integrating this economic program as part of a larger policy of assistance against cyber-attacks, election interference and disinformation campaigns. For example, the EU has deployed specialist teams to help Armenian institutions resist external influence operations and strengthen electoral resilience and its overall democratization. Thus, the EU appears ready to counter not only the examples of Russian economic pressure against Armenia that have already appeared but also future manifestations of Russian influence operations and information warfare against Armenia.  If that is indeed the case, it would represent a major turning point and policy initiative of great benefit to both Brussels and targeted states like Armenia.

The second new opportunity for the EU also emerges from the war against Ukraine. Ukraine’s ongoing targeting of Russian infrastructure is generating consequences that significantly affect Central Asian energy policies. Although several Central Asian states possess and produce large amounts of oil and gas; they have historically lacked the infrastructure to refine and then distribute gasoline and energy products domestically.  Instead, they have relied on Russia for those processes.

However, and due to Ukrainian strikes on Russia’s energy infrastructure, Moscow either cannot fulfill those contracts or is blocking the export of finished energy products to Central Asia. Since there is no alternative to Russian exports, the blocking of them triggers price rises and shortages in Central Asia. However, in countries like Tajikistan these shortages could lead to serious dislocation if not a genuine crisis. As a result, the idea of a Central Asian pipeline network, including Azerbaijan, has resurfaced. 

These discussions offer the EU a serious opportunity to advance both the construction of this regional pipeline infrastructure integrating Central Asia with Azerbaijan, and the ensuing creation of a pipeline network tying trans-Caspian producers to Europe. The EU possesses both the capital and the technological knowhow to invest in and help build this network. Doing so would alleviate Central Asia’s short-term dilemmas and, moreover, provide a safer long-term retort to Russia’s efforts to perpetuate the region’s subordination through its energy leverage. In this way a short-term answer to the current shortages would also lay the groundwork for a stable long-term solution to this problem and enhance regional independence, economic security, and prosperity.

Furthermore, the EU is already investing in regional infrastructure. Kazakhstan, for example, has offered the management of both the seaports and airports at Aktau and Kuryk to EU investors. Therefore, a scheme involving EU investment and/or management of a new energy infrastructure is eminently feasible and compatible with the logic of Kazakhstan’s offer. Also in this area, Brussels could take an active role in promoting regional development, economic security, and enhanced independence for Central Asia much as it is doing for Armenia. And here too it would be building on the foundation of existing programs as Kazakhstan’s example suggests.

CONCLUSIONS: 

Russia’s unwinnable war against Ukraine has unleashed a series of transformational processes across world politics. One significant consequence is the acceleration of decolonization processes across the Caucasus and Central Asia. That process, in turn, offers the EU and regional governments multiple new opportunities to strengthen economic integration and regional cooperation, trends that will further impede any Russian efforts at regaining its empire. Those tendencies also benefit the EU by reducing its members’ exposure to dependence upon Russian energy and Moscow’s ensuing leverage over their policies. In this way concerted and targeted EU policies, many of which are already underway, can increase security in Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.

These policies, by also reinforcing regional trade networks, also help to overcome the local rivalries from which only Moscow benefits. They invigorate regional cooperation and cohesion while also providing major stimuli for future economic development within the Caucasus and Central Asia and potentially also in Europe. Those processes and trends also will help mitigate the causes of local rivalries and foster regional peace among former enemies. The EU’s success in working with regional governments to meet these challenges may also lead both sides to look for further avenues of mutual cooperation and benefit, for example cooperative projects to meet the challenges of water supply and environmental degradation. Indeed, we are only at the beginning of a process that can lead to much greater benefit for both sides in the future, if indeed they seize these opportunities.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Stephen Blank is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, www.fpri.org.

By Nicola Ilario

For over four years, Russia’s war on Ukraine has been fought largely through attritional means. Each side has targeted the other’s economic infrastructure to force capitulation. But as Ukrainian strike capabilities have grown in rage and precision, that campaign has exploded well beyond the two countries’ borders, reaching into the Caspian basin. Strikes on Russian oil rigs, sanctioned vessels, and the Caspian Pipeline Consortium have inflicted real costs on Kazakhstan, a country with no stake in the conflict. The war, in other words, has expanded beyond its original battlefield.

BACKGROUND: As of the second half of 2026, Russia’s full-scale-invasion of Ukraine has gone on for over 4 years, surpassing the length of the First World War. Though taking place over a century after the latter, the war in Ukraine shares many similarities, notably that they are both wars of attrition.

The Russian strategy of eroding Ukrainian resistance has come largely with strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure. Russia hopes that a steady deterioration and eventual collapse of the Ukrainian energy grid will push a situation where Ukraine would be forced to make peace on Russia’s terms. The Ukrainian strategy is similar in some regards but seeks to target the Russian economy as whole. While the Special Operations Forces (SOF), and Unmanned System Forces (USF) have systematically targeted Russian oil refineries, depots and occasionally energy production infrastructure, Ukraine has further gone on to target logistical warehouses, shipping lanes and other economic targets.

Ukraine’s campaign has been extensive, and has recently spread into the Caspian basin as Ukrainian capabilities grow. In December 2025, Ukrainian drones hit the Filanovsky and Korchagin oil rigs, part of Russia’s largest Caspian oil field, damaging equipment and suspending production. The attacks were not an exception, as multiple rounds of attempts were made at hitting the facility, demonstrating evidence of a sustained campaign and greater disruption.

Beyond attacking stationary targets like fuel depots and refineries, Ukraine has further gone on to strike sanctioned cargo vessels in the Caspian, and even a Russian missile boat. Then, in a dramatic move, Ukraine struck an Iran-linked vessel they claimed was carrying military equipment between Russia and Iran.

IMPLICATIONS: Ukraine’s campaign against Russia in the Caspian basin is evident, however the second order consequences of such attacks are just as important, as they not only affect the Russian economy, but the economies and security situations of all the countries in the Caspian.

Starting in February 2025, Ukrainian drones began targeting the Caspian Pipeline Consortium. The pipeline carries Caspian crude from the Tengiz oil field in Kazakhstan to the Novorossiysk-2 Marine Terminal, an export facility at the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk and is hence economically important for both the Russian Federation and Kazakhstan. Though initially the attacks did not directly affect economic conditions outside of Russia, they have over time impacted Kazakhstan both financially and diplomatically. 

The Caspian Pipeline Consortium has been struck repeatedly: in November 2025, January 2026, April 2026, and again in July 2026, with drones increasingly targeting the Novorossiysk-2 marine terminal’s loading equipment directly rather than the pipeline’s inland pumping stations. The January attack alone cost Kazakhstan an estimated US$ 1.5 billion, forced a roughly 6 percent cut to national oil production, and contributed to a 21.2 percent year-on-year decline in Kazakhstan’s oil export revenue in the first quarter of 2025.

Astana’s response has been both technical and diplomatic. Kazakhstan has formally protested that the strikes threaten global energy security, expedited the purchase of new mooring hardware to harden the Novorossiysk terminal against further damage, and, more consequentially, accelerated real cargo flows through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline as a working backup route rather than a hypothetical one. In effect, the drone campaign has done in months what years of Middle Corridor diplomacy had not: forced Kazakhstan to test how much of its alternative export capacity is actually usable under stress.

The results so far are small compared to the hope of what could be ultimately possible. KazTransOil moved around 700,000 tons of crude toward BTC through the port of Ataku in the first half of 2026, and state operator KazMunayGas has set a 2026 target of 1.7 million tons. This is a target that surpasses that of 2025 by 31 percent. However, these shipments are still a small fraction of the roughly 60 million tons Kazakhstan ships annually via Russian-linked routes.

Officials have floated the idea of eventually raising BTC volumes toward 20 million tons a year, though tanker capacity on the Caspian and the cost of blending heavier Kazakh crude to the pipeline’s Azeri Light specification remain binding constraints on how fast that can happen. Azerbaijan and Georgia separately revived the long-dormant Baku-Suspa pipeline in May 2026, and Kazakh officials have said they are discussing its use as a further outlet, though no formal proposal from Baku has been made as of now.

The Iranian dimension adds a second axis of risk. Tehran summoned Ukraine’s chargé d'affaires and issued a public protest to the EU after a strike on an Iranian-linked vessel killed a sailor, though regional analysts have largely read the strike as a demonstration of reach aimed at Russian-Iranian arms cooperation rather than the opening of a new front. That reading is complicated by an earlier Israeli strike on Iran’s Bandar Anzali port on the same sea, which has raised the possibility of Israeli-Ukrainian coordination. The Caspian is no longer a space where only one conflict’s logic applies, though it is unlikely the strike will escalate into anything larger.

The stakes extend beyond Russia and Kazakhstan bilaterally. Western oil majors, including Chevron and ExxonMobil, hold direct equity stakes in the Caspian Pipeline Consortium. This means disruption to the pipeline carries commercial consequences for U.S. and European firms, not just for Kazakh-Russian relations. This is a dynamic that a recent assessment ties directly to Ukraine’s parallel strikes on Russia’s Orenburg gas plant. Karachaganak’s gas is processed at Orenburg under a long-term supply contract, so when Ukrainian drones struck the plant in October 2025, and again in June 2026, Kazakhstan had to curtail gas intake there. Furthermore, because oil and gas condensate output at Karachaganak are tied together, oil production fell by roughly 25 to 30 percent each time. That reduced volumes directly for Chevron and Shell, which together hold a 47 percent stake in the Karachaganak consortium, making the field a second, non-CPC channel through which the war has hit Western-operated Kazakh production.

The Caspian strikes can be situated within that larger campaign: Ukrainian drone strikes have pushed Russian oil refining to a 24-year low, suggesting the Caspian theater is an extension of a broader economic-attrition strategy rather than an isolated escalation.

CONCLUSIONS: The Caspian basin is no longer insulated from the Russo-Ukrainian War. Kazakhstan is absorbing the bulk of these costs directly, but its neighbors’ exposure is more uneven than the corridor’s shared geography might suggest. Azerbaijan’s own Russia-linked route, the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline, has for years run well below its roughly 5-million-ton annual capacity, more recently loading closer to 3 million tons of which roughly two-thirds is Kazakh. Baku at times had discussed reverse-flow arrangements to bring Russian oil south for domestic refining rather than depending on the line for its own exports, so its direct financial exposure to disruptions in the Caspian are limited. If anything, Azerbaijan and Georgia stand to gain. The two revived Baku-Supsa pipelines can, to the benefit of Baku and Tbilisi, capture Kazakh volumes diverted from CPC. Turkmenistan, whose exports do not run through the CPC/Novorossiysk corridor faces even less direct exposure.

Regional cooperation among Caspian states, and direct diplomatic engagement between Kyiv and Astana specifically, will matter for containing further spillover. However, Kazakhstan’s leverage to compel restraint from either belligerent is limited. What Astana can more plausibly control is its own exposure—to treat the diversification toward the Middle Corridor and Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan that the strikes have already forced in practice as an immediate operational priority.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Nicola Ilario is an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania. He studies Economics and History, with a concentration in the history of diplomacy. Nicola interned at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute the Summer of 2026, assisting fellows in their research. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .