Implementation of the Russian smart power in Central Asia

Three decades later after collapsing of the Soviet Union, its successor Russia still remains a strong influencing political power in Central Asia. It is a matter of fact that some of these countries wield crucial mineral wealth and the others have a huge electricity production potential that attracts attention of other political players. Its strategic transit routes as well as its location near Afghanistan draw the interests of big geopolitical powers, namely US, European Union, India and China. Factually one cannot ignore the close religious, cultural, and language ties of these ethnically Turkic people of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan with Türkiye and Persian ties of Tajikistan with Iran which make both Türkiye and Iran highly interested in the states of Central Asia. However, none of the aforementioned countries have an as strong an influence as Russia does in that region. This article discusses about how Russia implements its smart power worldwide in general and in the Central Asian states in particular.