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Abstract

The Russia-Ukraine war has triggered the fragmentation and reorganization of power on the Eurasian continent. This war also had a profound impact on the domestic politics and foreign policies of Russia's Central Asian neighbors. The article constructs an analytical framework for elite preferences, domestic politics and public opinions. Then, the article measured the public opinion of the Kyrgyz people on the Russia-Ukraine war and official voting data at the United Nations General Assembly, while collecting materials from Central Asia, and finds that the Kyrgyz people's attitudes towards the war are complex compared to the preferences of official elites. On the one hand, contrary to the official abstention vote in the UN General Assembly condemning Russia, a large number of Kyrgyz people do not support Russia's military action. On the other hand, a considerable proportion of Kyrgyz people hold a neutral attitude towards the Russo-Ukrainian war. The consensus of neutrality among the public and elites stems from a consideration of individual and national interests, including factors such as migration workers, geopolitical security, and Western sanctions. Kyrgyzstan's pluralistic discourse society after its democratic transition provides space for accommodating both consistency and differences in public opinions and elite preferences.

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The main argument of this research posits that armed conflict not only leads to a major reframing of national identity for the belligerents, but also has a noticeable effect on national identity in nearby states. Such an argument is supported by the use of securitization theory, which frames national identity as a referent object under “the threat of extinction” as framed by the securitizing actors. By employing comparative discourse analysis of presidential addresses in Ukraine and Kazakhstan from 2019 to 2024 this study aims to examine the transformation of rhetoric, whether and how the two leaders securitize national identity. The research attempts to systematize the study of war and its effect on identity in and out of the conflict zone, as well as attempt to shed light on previously understudied subject of official identity rhetoric in Kazakhstan post-2022 and discern the effect of inward-bound securitization around the January events and outward-bound securitization around the conflict in Ukraine.

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This paper examines the evolution of public rhetoric by Russian political figures toward the states of Central Asia from 2014 to 2026. Based on a chronological case-study analysis of online statements by federal government officials, members of the Russian State Duma, state-affiliated media influencers and experts, it traces a gradual shift from historical revisionism to the articulation of an interventionist discourse.

The findings indicate that between 2014 to 2020, dominant narratives questioned the subjectivity and legitimacy of the state borders of Central Asian countries. These narratives were grounded in claims about «gifted territories», «artificial statehood», and the conditional nature of national identity. Starting in 2021, and particularly amid the war in Ukraine, the rhetoric acquired a harsher tone. References to the «protection of Russians», parallels with the Ukrainian scenario, and explicit suggestions of potential border revision became more frequent. By 2025-2026, public statements emerged that articulated the idea of a possible military operation in Central Asia and openly questioned the autonomy of the region`s foreign policy choices.

The paper this interprets this trajectory through the lens of theories of revisionist state behavior and discursive escalation. It demonstrates that the repetition of such narratives, their institutional articulation, and their amplification through media channels contribute to the construction of a stable interpretive framework in which the region portrayed as a space of «conditional sovereignty», potentially susceptible to external pressure.

The paper also reviews the reactions of Central Asia states, which include diplomatic protests, entry bans, and the public declaration of individuals as persona non grata. These measures are interpreted as symbolic and political tools for boundary-setting in the context of asymmetric regional relations.

Thus, the paper demonstrates a consistent transformation of rhetoric frame, moving from historic revisionism to an interventionist discourse. This approach contributes to a broader understanding of how Russian discursive practice shape political space and security perceptions in Central Asia.

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This chapter investigates the effect of the Ukraine war on political system in Kazakhstan. Since January unrest in 2022 various democracy indices and human rights watchdogs have been reporting rise of repressions and deterioration of civil liberties. How did the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine affect increasing authoritarianism in Kazakhstan? By utilizing a process-tracing technique author builds a timeline of events and political developments since January 2022 until 2025. Findings show that soon after the war broke out, the government ramped up prosecution of civic activists, independent journalists and media on charges of spreading disinformation and inciting interethnic hatred. In addition, it adopted Law on Online Platform, amended Law on Media and established Anti-Information Warfare Division to exert stricter control of media and internet space. These developments illustrate how Kazakhstan framed Ukraine war as an external threat to public order thereby justifying repressive measures and deepening self-censorship.

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The paper examines hate speech directed at international migrants within Russian political discourse. Populist politicians and far right primarily deploy such rhetoric, according to a common assumption. However, in the Russian context, hate speech functions as a tool actively deployed by the authorities to legitimise the tightening of migration policy. While in Western democracies hate speech remains largely a resource for oppositional and far right seeking to enter the political mainstream, contemporary Russia exhibits a fundamentally different configuration: the rhetoric of exclusion towards migrants is systematically reproduced by actors representing institutional political discourse including federal officials, and members of parliament. Drawing on the methodology of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and securitisation theory, and utilising an empirical corpus comprising transcripts of State Duma sessions, official statements by government members, and public addresses by governors, the author demonstrates that hate speech against migrants is not a peripheral phenomenon but a component of the policy of migration securitisation. The analysis reveals that this discourse is (a) articulated by political actors holding formal authority; (b) constructed upon the collective representation of migrants as a source of criminal, economic, and sociocultural risks; and (c) grounded in stereotypes that frame migration as an existential threat. Russian research on hate speech has traditionally focused on the linguistic analysis of discriminatory speech tactics and strategies, primarily as they appear in media, Telegram channels, and the regional press. Western scholarship, by contrast, tends to embed the phenomenon of hate speech within macro-political theories of securitisation and welfare chauvinism, examining anti-migrant rhetoric as a tool for legitimising power and channelling social discontent in contexts of illiberalism. However, both Russian and Western studies exhibit a persistent research gap: empirical analysis has largely been confined to either media discourse or oppositional rhetoric, while the statements of institutional actors wielding formal authority remain insufficiently studied. By focusing on official sources, this paper aims to close that gap. Through this analysis, the study not only provides empirical evidence of how xenophobic rhetoric operates within Russia's institutional discourse, but also refines the application of securitisation theory to illiberal regimes. On a practical level, these findings could inform the work of NGOs, human rights advocates, and policymakers seeking to develop effective counters to migrantophobia, for instance, by identifying the specific discursive patterns that need to be challenged or by highlighting the mechanisms through which discriminatory practices in the public sphere can be addressed.