Alexander Cooley (Claire Tow Professor of Political Science and Vice Provost at Barnard College) speaks about Central Asia’s present and future on RFE’s Majlis: Talking Central Asia podcast.

“They [Central Asian governments] don’t want to pick in this Russia vs. the West fight, in a very genuine way, because they see what happens when you do take sides. Both with regards to what happened with Ukraine, but also a country like Belarus.”

“A lot of sympathy for Ukraine, a lot of fear of Russia, but that doesn’t translate to the kind of clear opposition to the war that we thought we were going to see. We really need to be careful about the type of lenses we put on the region in response… The war has put everyone in the region, the regional ripple effects have been very difficult, but I see it as reconstituting of ties with Russia as opposed to breaking them.”