In a move sure to increase the already-smoldering tensions within Ukraine, two airports in Crimea, a staunchly pro-Russian zone, have been occupied by Russian troops. The troops, who were not wearing insignias, secured the civilian airport in Crimea’s regional capital of Simferopol early this morning. The Russian navy also secured the Belbek military airport near…
Construction of a new route linking oil and gas giants Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Iran is grinding slowly towards completion. Though initial estimates on project had it fully operational as early as 2011, recent headway on the project in Turkmenistan, the last remaining 90 kilometer stretch of the nearly 900 kilometer (559 miles) railway, is expected…
While South Asia struggles with developing LNG midstream infrastructure under the watchful eye of the US, the rest of Central Asia is quickly being divided between Chinese and Russian interests. What might have been considered only twenty years ago safely Russian-influenced territory is now the site of the CACP (Central Asia – China Pipeline), which…
Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych has been impeached by more than two thirds of the Ukrainian parliament, capping off a series of events that did away with the controversial president in a matter of days. The impeachment, however, was soon followed up by an even greater indictment of the president’s actions towards the outraged Ukrainian populace,…
Yesterday, after more than 77 protestors were killed in the central Maidan square of Kiev, embattled president Victor Yanukovych accepted a tentative deal from opposition leaders that forces him to have early elections and reduces his executive authority. The Ukranian Parliament also voted to allow to release former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, a sign of…
Ongoing violence in Independence Square, or Maidan, in Kiev, Ukraine, has claimed the lives of more than 50 Ukrainian protestors and seen hundreds more injured. The rapid escalation in aggression impetuously put an end to a short-lived truce brokered between the Ukrainian government and opposition party leaders. Though the principal catalyzing factor remains unknown, both…
Turkmenistan is not the only source of LNG in Central Asia. Iran has long hoped to marshal its LNG resources but its central problem is the hesitancy of its neighbors to enter into a partnership to develop pipeline infrastructure. This is partially due to the harsh economic sanctions placed upon the Iranian economy on account…
Allegations of widespread corruption in Russia are not a new phenomenon. However, as Sergey Guriev, a leading Russian economist and former Rector of the New Economic School of Moscow, pointed out in a speech delivered at Columbia University this past Friday, the problems facing the Russian, while endemic and deeply ingrained, can be ascribed to…
The global shale gas boom has barely begun. It is already old news in North America, but emerging markets in Asia have found that demand consistently outstrips supply, due not only to scarcity, but also to underdevelopment of existing resources. One of the largest sources of undeveloped energy and mineral wealth lies in the Caspian…
The former Soviet Republics of Central Asia have long been a highway for the lucrative drug trade, but in recent years the routes out of the so-called Golden Crescent have been swelling with increasing traffic of opium grown in Afghanistan. Despite many efforts over the years by both Afghan and American central planners in Kabul,…
STEPPE DISPATCHES 