Section 6 Russia and Belarus, Central Asia and the Caucasus

1 Overview

Despite continued severe sanctions against Russia and strong support for Ukraine, mainly by the G7 and the European Union (EU) countries, Russia's aggression against Ukraine, which is an outrageous act, did not stop in 2023. In this context, there have been almost no high-level exchanges between the G7, EU countries, and Russia. Europe, which before Russia's aggression was the largest importer of Russian energy, has further reduced its imports. In addition, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) continues to further expand, with Finland joining NATO and Sweden making significant progress toward NATO membership. Meanwhile, the decision was made to begin negotiations toward Ukraine's accession to the EU. Thus, the relationship between Russia and the G7, EU countries and others has undergone a major structural change.

Russia insists that it is not isolated from the international community and seeks to further strengthen ties with China, India, North Korea, and the developing and emerging countries known as the Global South, but the responses of these countries and regions have been mixed. At the second Russia-Africa Summit in July, the number of countries whose heads of state attended was significantly lower than the first summit in 2019. For the BRICS summit held in South Africa in August, six new countries were invited to join, and Russia, the 2024 chair, announced that five of them (the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Saudi Arabia) had joined on January 1, 2024. Their future responses will be closely watched.

As for Belarus, President Alexander Lukashenko has maintained his support for Russia, making note of the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.

Regarding Central Asian and Caucasus countries, while they have close geopolitical and economic ties with Russia, they have maintained a neutral stance toward Russia's aggression against Ukraine (excluding Georgia, which has expressed support for Ukraine). They are also struggling to cope with the impact on transportation routes for energy and other trade items and remittances from migrant workers in Russia.

In response to this situation, countries including the U.S. and China held summit- and ministerial-level meetings with the five Central Asian countries, and dialogues with Central Asia were actively pursued. In the Caucasus region, military activity by Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh in September was followed by confidence-building steps toward a peace agreement. With these developments, the international community's attention has turned to the countries of Central Asia and the Caucasus.