Past event
Silence is golden? Silences as strategic narratives in Central Asian states' response to the Ukrainie by Dr Timur Dadabayev
Professor of International Relations and the Director of the Special Program for Japanese and Eurasian Studies at the Graduate School of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Tsukuba, Japan
Russias recognition of renegade regions in Ukraine, followed by its full-scale invasion on February 24,2022, has received overwhelming condemnation from the international community. Although initially thought to be limited, international reactions eventually resulted in a great number of economic sanctions against Russias politicians, economic system, transportation networks, financial infrastructure, sports teams, and scientific community. The major source of these sanctions was the West, exemplified by the alliance of the European Union (EU), the USA, and the UK. These sanctions were then sup-ported and shared by many other countries (i.e., Scandinavian countries, Japan, Australia, Canada, and many others) who either share Western concerns or support such sanctions to avoid being scapegoated as countries challenging the Western norms of liberal democracy, rule of law, and state sovereignty. However, paradoxically, the responses of countries in Central Asia (CA), whose positions are impacted the most by the Russian special operation in Ukraine and whose post-operation futures are tightly related to how Russia behaves, have been restrained, unvoiced, and largely private. For example, while the UN (United Nations) General Assembly resolution condemning the Russian invasion into Ukraine was sponsored by ninety countries and received 141 votes in favor of it during the March 2 vote, no CA state voted in favor of the resolution. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan chose to abstain from voting, while Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan did not vote at all. In a similar manner, during the March 24 vote on the UN GA resolution titled Humanitarian consequences of the aggression against Ukraine, most of CA states were among thirty-six countries that abstained while Turkmenistan did not vote at all