We expect that news organizations will soon be reporting a “Russian military intervention” in Kyrgyzstan. For reasons explained below, any such headlines will be misleadingly alarmist. It follows that this news could have an immediate negative impact on Russia’s financial markets followed by a rapid bounce back.
The news headlines we foresee may catch markets by surprise for appearing to fly in the face of Kremlin statements on 13-14 June rejecting the request from the interim Kyrgyz President for Russian peacekeepers to intervene to stop the bloody clashes between ethnic Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in the south of the country. An instant negative market reaction would stem from the memory of the last time the Russian army was deployed in a neighbouring former Soviet country. This was in August 2008 at the start of the 5-day war against Georgia, which triggered large-scale capital flight (central bank reserves fell by nearly US$20 billion in two weeks) and sharp dips in Russian debt and equity prices.
We have two reasons for predicting news reports of Russian troops appearing in southern Kyrgyzstan, far from their permanent base near the capital Bishkek (which was already reinforced with paratrooper platoons at the weekend to protect military equipment and personnel stationed there: incidentally, this is not the former Soviet military airbase leased by the US to support its operations in Afghanistan, which is located on the other side of the city).
The first reason is that a trusted source with excellent contacts in both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan has told us that Russian military personnel will soon arrive on the scene.
The second and more important reason is a reading of the results of the emergency meeting in Moscow on 14 June of senior officials of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO – a kind of rump Warsaw Pact comprising, besides Russia, five other former Soviet countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Belarus and Armenia ). Although it was decided at that meeting not to despatch a multilateral CSTO peacekeeping force to Kyrgyzstan, the acting Kyrgyz foreign minister said afterwards that his country would be helped “in other ways”. It became clear what that meant from the briefing given to President Medvedev by the CSTO Secretary, Nikolay Bordyuzha (a Russian military officer who is also a former Kremlin Chief of Staff). The Kyrgyz authorities are judged to have sufficient military and security personnel to regain control of the situation, but lack the necessary equipment (helicopters, land vehicles) and fuel – which will be supplied to them. And the supplier will, of course, be Russia. This would have been obvious even without the clear signal to that effect from Nikolay Patrushev, a close Putin associate who is now secretary of the National Security Council (and in that capacity, Russia’s official representative to the CSTO) after previously serving for eight years as head of the FSB (former KGB). Patrushev said simply that the CSTO had left it open to member countries to take whatever measures might be necessary.
Although we believe the Russian military has no interest in becoming embroiled in an ethnic conflict in a failed central Asian state, it will be required by the political leadership in the Kremlin to deliver the equipment now in effect promised to the Kyrgyz security forces – and to some extent (in the case of the helicopters, for example) to operate that equipment. In short, it will not be long before Russian military personnel are spotted in southern Kyrgyzstan.
Whatever instant geopolitical and financial market scares this development may cause, it could hardly be more different in fundamental terms from the August 2008 war which resulted in two Russian military protectorates being carved out of Georgia. The imminent Russian action in Kyrgyzstan will more likely gain Russia diplomatic plaudits for putting a stop to appalling bloodshed. There may be little consolation in the final death toll (now in the low hundreds) ending up lower than the great pogrom of 1990 which left thousands of ethnic Uzbek dead in and around the same southern Kyrgyz town of Osh which is the epicentre of the latest carnage; but other contrasts with that previous horror will redound to Russia’s benefit. Back then, as the Soviet Union was melting down, forces despatched by Moscow were ineffectual. Now, Russia’s pre-eminent role in the former Soviet Union – and, in particular, Central Asia – will have been forcefully demonstrated. The new Kyrgyz rulers will owe their position to Moscow, while the regime in Uzbekistan will be relieved from further deterioration of the acute refugee problem it faces with tens of thousands of ethnic Uzbeks pouring over the border from Kyrgyzstan into the densely populated and unstable Fergana valley region of eastern Uzbekistan.
With best regards,
Christopher Granville
Director, Russia & FSU Research, Trusted Sources
