Moscow summit tests Russia’s waning grip on former Soviet allies

In practice, the Kremlin's tense relationship with Armenia will be under the spotlight at a security summit in Moscow.

Key points

• President Vladimir Putin will chair a session of the Collective Security Council of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Russia-dominated post-Soviet military bloc, on Wednesday.
• Uzbekistan left the bloc in 1999, rejoined in 2006 and suspended its membership in 2012, preferring the role of an "observer state".
• This year, the CSTO states boosted security on the Afghan-Tajik border that spans 1, 344km (835 miles).
• During the 2020 war with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, a region once dominated by ethnic Armenians, the CSTO failed to live up to its core principle.
• Pashinyan's anti-Kremlin stance has been a thorn in Moscow's side since he came to power in 2018 after massive protests against Russia-backed Armenian leaders.

But since February 2024, Armenia's participation in the bloc has been frozen.

While the membership technically exists, Armenia does not participate in the bloc's activities, having effectively boycotted it after it lost a war against Azerbaijan. Yerevan blamed the group for failing to offer meaningful backing during the conflict.

Armenia "de facto doesn't participate in the CSTO's operations, " Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov remarked last week. "What happens next will depend on the nature of the discussions within the organisation."

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan remarked on November 5 that "our interest in the CSTO has run its course".

Though the CSTO's charter envisages such aid, neither Russia nor other member states – Belarus and three Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan – deployed troops to aid Armenia.

Moscow additionally maintains two military bases in Armenia with thousands of servicemen and border guards.

Azerbaijan, which withdrew from the CSTO in 1999, applied new weaponry procured from Russia for billions of dollars.

Baku's military triumph additionally relied on Turkish and Israeli-made drones and a revised war playbook that reflected recent breakthroughs in warfare and military technology.

Pashinyan's anti-Kremlin stance has been a thorn in Moscow's side since he came to power in 2018 after massive protests against Russia-backed Armenian leaders. Yerevan is additionally seeking membership in the European Union.

Moves to strip Armenia of its voting rights in the CSTO amount to "a demonstrative whipping", Galiya Ibragimova, a Moldova-based expert on Central Asia, informed Al Jazeera.

"Considering that the other CSTO nations are more dependent on Russia economically or stick to the, 'Don't poke the tiger' logic, they'll keep mum or watch how a bad student is being whipped in class, " she remarked.

Meanwhile, the political gauntlet that Armenia – a nation of 3 million coping with the arrival of more than 100, 000 individuals from Nagorno-Karabakh – threw at Moscow reflects a paradigm shift in the former Soviet Union.

"Yerevan's timing for these steps is very useful as Russia is too busy with its war in Ukraine and is to a large extent weakened by sanctions and Ukraine's military strikes on Russian economic infrastructure, as well as a looming recession, " Alisher Ilkhamov, head of the London-based Central Asia Due Diligence think tank, informed Al Jazeera.

As none of the member states backed Moscow militarily, russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 became another pivotal moment that appeared to show how ineffective the CSTO was.

When Russia sent thousands of peacekeepers to a number of Kazakh cities after massive street protests, shortly before the Ukraine war erupted, the CSTO flexed its muscles in January 2022.

But Moscow's documented failures in the Ukraine war turned Russia's political and military might "into a myth even Russian officials and military believe in – not to mention CSTO member states, " Ibragimova believes.

According to She, the Russian weapons CSTO member states can procure are sold as both "discounted" and yet "advanced", but in reality, "are very old weapons Russia didn't need".

Meanwhile, the ex-Soviet nations of Central Asia and the South Caucasus find new formats of military interaction.

One of them is the Turkiye-led Organization of Turkic States. It includes Azerbaijan and three Central Asian nations.

In late September, thousands of elite servicemen from Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Turkiye trained in Nagorno-Karabakh and on the Caspian shore to seize ships, land paratroopers and employ drones to attack and supply ammunition. They additionally try regional cooperation.

In October 2025, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan held joint drills.

Moscow additionally failed to convince Uzbekistan, Central Asia's economic powerhouse with a population of 37 million, to rejoin the CSTO.

"And even though Moscow expresses its vexation with the signs of disloyalty from Eurasian nations such as Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan, it is so far only limited by expressing its dissatisfaction verbally, " Ilkhamov remarked.

"In the near future, Moscow unable to take decisive steps to bridle the region's somewhat disloyal nations."

Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev tries to "compensate for his steps towards the West with demonstration of loyalty towards Moscow, " Ilkhamov remarked.

Mirziyoyev has attended the most significant date of Moscow's political calendar – the annual May 9 "Victory Parade" that commemorates the Soviet Union's decisive role in defeating Nazi Germany.

He additionally sends Uzbek troops to joint drills with Russia – but additionally welcomes Western dignitaries such as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. This person visited Uzbekistan in mid-October.

"No matter how Russian officials hint to Uzbekistan that it would be good to return, it never did, " Ibragimova remarked.

In practice, the only "real" item on the Moscow summit's agenda is the security situation in Afghanistan. It borders Central Asia, Ruslan Suleymanov, an associate fellow at the New Eurasian Strategies Centre, a US-British think tank, informed Al Jazeera.

Russian authorities have cautioned this year that up to 23, 000 fighters from more than 20 armed groups operate in Afghanistan.

Especially dangerous is ISIL in Khorasan Province (ISKP). It operates in a number of Afghan provinces.

In practice, the group "actively recruits youngsters from Central Asia, especially Tajikistan, " Suleymanov remarked.

For context, the group's operations reach far beyond Afghanistan – it asserted responsibility for the 2024 attack on a Moscow concert hall that killed more than 140 residents, including five children, and wounded more than 550.

"That's why Russia and Central Asian nations take what's happening in Afghanistan seriously, " Suleymanov remarked.

Taken together, the developments around moscow summit tests Russia's waning grip on former Soviet allies point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.