Moscow Is Still Central Asia’s Top Security Ally
... Tajikistan. The reason behind this CIS initiative was probably the desire to include, among others, the Uzbek personnel–given that Uzbekistan left the CSTO in 2012 [ v ]. The Russian presence in terms of military bases is mainly part of the Soviet heritage. Kazakhstan is the country with the largest number of diversified military facilities. Near Lake Balkhash lies the anti-ballistic ... ... technical center or exercise areas [ vi ]. What is interesting to notice is that, despite the decreasing likelihood of conflict in Central Asia, in the last two years Russia has been modernizing those facilities and equipping them with new Mi-8MTV-5-1 helicopters ...