Astana, August 2025 — Absence doesn’t always make noise. Sometimes it takes the form of roads no longer built with rubles, of Russian consulates reduced to symbolic offices, or of bilateral summits where Moscow attends more as a guest than a host. In Central Asia, the post-Soviet era is no longer a regime of inheritance—it is a board of replacement. And the Russian Federation, once omnipresent, now manages a particular kind of void: the governance of irrelevance.
Since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia has drained its diplomatic and military capital in Eurasia. In return, it has ceded ground to more liquid, less ideological actors: China, Turkey, and, to a lesser extent, Iran. This partial withdrawal was not planned—it was induced by its own overextension.
According to the latest report from the Carnegie Endowment (July 2025), Moscow has lost privileged access to 5 of the 11 largest transnational energy projects in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. The reason is not only geopolitical but technological: Gazprom is no longer competitive against Turkish and Asian consortia backed by Huawei Energy and SOCAR.
Simultaneously, Russia’s cultural penetration has also receded. Universities in Tashkent and Bishkek now sign agreements with Ankara and Seoul—not Moscow. Russian is no longer a lingua franca but a residue. The Turkic Council, once anecdotal, now dictates linguistic and religious diplomacy in key cities across the Ferghana Valley.
The Kremlin’s silence in the face of these shifts is not negligence—it is reactive strategy. Russia has opted to maintain a symbolic presence—military bases in Tajikistan, security pacts with Uzbekistan, Orthodox missions—that function more as reminders than mechanisms of control. According to Stratfor, this new posture is part of a “regional buffering doctrine” whose aim is not dominance, but avoidance of total isolation.
China, by contrast, does not occupy with soldiers but with algorithms. Its Digital Silk Road strategy has turned Central Asia into a laboratory of algorithmic governance and data mining. In Almaty, Huawei operates the largest cyber defense center in Central Asia, in collaboration with the Kazakh Ministry of the Interior. The line between national sovereignty and digital outsourcing is rapidly dissolving.
Turkey has also expanded its influence, though through spiritual and educational means. The TÜRKIYAT school network and Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) missions are present in every Central Asian capital. In Samarkand, the restoration of madrasas funded by Ankara is interpreted as a revival of its pan-Islamic influence.
Meanwhile, Russia remains silent. It does not denounce, it does not compete, it does not propose. It waits. But in diplomacy, waiting is a form of abandonment. The latest surveys from the Kazakh Institute of Public Opinion (July 2025) show that only 18% of young people see Russia as a strategic partner. A decade ago, that number was 61%.
In this new map, alliances are no longer signed in formal summits but in data centers, restored mosques, and railway routes that connect Baku to Xi’an without passing through Moscow. The Great Game has mutated: it is no longer about armies, but about contracts, telecommunications, and algorithms.
And while the Kremlin remains silent, others are writing history in an alphabet that no longer passes through Cyrillic.
Aigerim Beketova, Central Asia correspondent at Phoenix24. Specialist in Eurasian infrastructure diplomacy, energy geopolitics, and digital Islam in the steppes.