Vladimir Putin wants to strengthen ties between Russia and Central Asian countries

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Caspian Sea counterparts, including Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, at the Caspian Summit in Ashgabat, June 29, 2022 © Sputnik/Grigory Sysoyev, via Reuters

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Russian President Vladimir Putin is on tour in Central Asia and attended the 6th summit of the countries bordering the Caspian Sea on Wednesday June 29.

It was an opportunity for the Russian president to strengthen ties with the former Soviet republics in the region, all worried about Russia's war in Ukraine.

He still tried to mark the territory and talk about security.

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With our correspondent in the region,

Régis Genté

To the four other presidents of the countries bordering the Caspian - Turkmenistan, host country, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Iran - Vladimir Putin delivered a message calling for

the deepening of ties

between them and Russia.

At the 6th summit of this sea whose status has been undefined since the fall of the USSR in 1991, he spoke of security and stability in the region, confidence-building measures, the exclusion of all military activity by countries not bordering the Caspian.

Which is aimed primarily at the United States.

The head of the Kremlin gave the impression of wanting to mark the territory, while being cautious: He knows how much the leaders of the former Soviet republics are worried about

Russian military ambitions

, since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine.

In Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, for example, he was able to meet his Kazakh counterpart,

Kassym-Jomart Tokayev

again , a few days after the latter told him with tact and firmness, during a forum in Saint Petersburg, that he would not recognize the independence of the separatist republics of Donbass, contrary to what Moscow would like.

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