The Kazakh tenge has fallen to a degree that threatens the viability of a theoretical Russian-led “ruble zone.” The monetary project, which has come under increased scrutiny in light of recent events in Crimea, has been championed by Russian President Vladimir Putin along with his contemporaries in both Belarus and Kazakhstan as the economic accompaniments…
Russian occupation and eventual annexation of Crimea has provoked strong condemnation from officials in Washington, Brussels and Berlin, and generated a wave of economic and visa-related sanctions doled out by the US government with the goal of restricting members of Vladimir Putin’s inner circle. Actions taken by individual nation states were coupled with a resolution…
The role of Germany in resolving the Ukraine crisis seems to be increasing, as Berlin inveighed strongly against Russian actions within the Ukrainian Crimea in threatening “massive” political and economic sanctions should Moscow continue to refuse to negotiate with its counterparts in Kiev. German Chancellor Angela Merkel admonished that an increasing number of asset freezes…
Former U.S. Congressman Dan Burton, a Republican from Indiana’s 5th congressional district, has drawn controversy over his efforts to promote the Rogun Hydroelectric Dam project in Tajikistan that, if completed, would surpass China’s Three Gorges Dam as the largest dam in the world. The hydroelectric dam, which in spite of decades of planning has only…
Iran’s Anti-Narcotics Headquarters for International Relations has issued a statement condemning the traffic of heroin through Iranian territory. Deputy General Mahmoud Bayat took advantage of a meeting with Sweden’s Foreign Ministry to underline Iranian discontent with the increasingly voluminous quantity of heroin trafficked both into Iranian drug markets and through Iran destined for markets in…
More than 6,000 Russian forces flowed into the Ukrainian region of Crimea on Saturday, generating strong fervent criticism from Western powers and placing Ukraine in an uncertain situation. The maneuvers engaged in by the Russian forces began Friday with the arrival of armed men to the southeastern Ukrainian region, but the incursion into Ukrainian territory…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
STEPPE DISPATCHES 