Turan Research Center

A fresh round of US-brokered peace talks between Russia and Ukraine is taking place this week as the Trump administration seeks to reach a deal by early summer. While pro-Ukrainian voices warn that any agreement lacking ironclad security guarantees for Kyiv could embolden Moscow to go further into Moldova or test NATO in the Baltics, the biggest threat may be to countries elsewhere in the former Soviet space.

There are already signs that Russia is turning its imperial appetite toward the South Caucasus and Central Asia, where the groundwork for destabilization appears to be well underway. Any negotiated settlement in Ukraine that ignores these regions will not end the current war; it will merely relocate it.   

Russian nationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin, who is often called “Putin’s brain,” declared last month that no post-Soviet state should possess sovereignty. Instead, he argued, Moscow “has no choice but to restore the Russian Empire.” Days earlier, leading Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Solovyov called for Russia to conduct “special military operations” similar to the invasion of Ukraine in Central Asia and the Caucasus.

Read the full article on the Atlantic Council.

Joseph Epstein is Director of the Turan Research Center.