Eurasianet

Elections that don’t matter, Russia sows paranoia, and trouble upstream for Turkmen farmers: Our weekly Turkmenistan briefing.

Russian officials and propagandists had several reactions to the recent crisis in Georgia: gloating, echoing the Georgian government's rhetoric, and casually threatening to bomb Tbilisi into the ground.

Armenians had been using the road to bypass a blockade on the main road, the Lachin Corridor. The move drew a rare rebuke from the Russian peacekeepers.

The U.S. and Russia have both made high-level contact with Armenian and Azerbaijani officials as the rhetoric from Baku is getting increasingly bellicose.

Every unhappy country is unhappy in its own way.

Kazakh traders have been helping fill Russian demand for high-tech consumer goods and other items hard to obtain under Western sanctions.

By one count, at least 23 out of 29 of the single-mandate district seats have been won by Amanat.

The legislature will see many new faces, but there is little evidence a dramatic reset is looming.

Only one in four voters in Almaty, the country's largest city, cast their ballot.

It was unclear on whose behalf the former secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, was visiting, and what it portended for Armenia’s geopolitical orientation.

Plus: The geopolitical rivalry over Central Asia heats back up.

Media have been warned against giving anti-war Russians a platform.

For the first time that many people can remember, hardline government critics are joining the race. Or trying to, at least.

Many see the adoption of Georgia's "foreign agent" legislation as a definitive geopolitical turn away from the West.

Georgia's ruling party cites the U.S. in defense of its controversial bills on foreign agents, but critics argue the nation is learning from the worst.