Uzbekistan received a rude surprise just before the New Year when Russian writer and politician Zakhar Prilepin proposed annexing Uzbekistan into the Russian Federation.

It was not the first time a Russian politician has spoken about reclaiming parts or all of Russia’s former colonies in Central Asia.

Prilepin, a nationalist, co-chairman of the A Just Russia – For Truth party, and a strong supporter of Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine, was speaking about migrant labourers in Russia at a December 20 press conference in Moscow.

Zakhar Prilepin (Credit: Svklimkin, cc-by-sa 4.0).

Several million migrant labourers in Russia are citizens of Central Asian countries. Most are from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Prilepin said: “These territories, from where migrant workers come to us, should simply be annexed entirely, and Russian language taught there, not here [in Russia], in Uzbekistan, for example.”

Most Central Asian migrant labourers in Russia are from Uzbekistan. There are officially some two million, but that figure is likely twice as high as many migrant labourers work in Russia illegally.

Prilepin referred to this in further comments. “Since two million of your citizens are on our territory,” Prilepin said, “we claim your territory”. He later added: “Who will forbid us to do anything useful on the territory of Eurasian territory after the parade in Kyiv?”

The Uzbek Foreign Ministry was quick to respond, summoning the Russian ambassador to Uzbekistan on December 21 to protest “these kind of ill-considered statements by party leaders of such a friendly country as the Russian Federation.”

The Russian ambassador, Oleg Malginov, assured that Prilepin’s remarks “have nothing even remotely to do with the official position of the leadership of the Russian Federation.”

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova gave almost exactly the same response, and recalled the “warm atmosphere” that prevailed when Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev came to Russia on an official visit in October to meet with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

Such refutations by Russia’s Foreign Ministry do little to ease concerns in Central Asia because while the Kremlin can say such statements do not reflect the Russian government’s views, the Russian government has done nothing to stop officials from making such irredentist remarks.

Kazakhstan with a 7,800-kilometre (4,847-mile) border with Russia has been the target of many such comments from Russian officials since the Soviet Union fell apart.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (Credit: Bert Verhoeff for Anefo, cc-by-sa 1.0).

On April 23, 1996, Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda published an article by Nobel Prize-winning writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The former Soviet dissident, who passed away in 2008, argued that parts of Kazakhstan naturally and historically belonged to Russia.

More recently, in December 2020, Russian State Duma Deputy Vyacheslav Nikonov said on Russian television that when the Soviet Union was created in 1917, “Kazakhstan simply did not exist as a country, its northern territories were basically uninhabited”.

Days later, another Duma deputy, Yevgeny Fedorov, told a Belarusian media outlet that the Belavezha Accords that dissolved the Soviet Union were illegal and that Kazakhstan was effectively “leasing” Russian land.

On March 9, 2022, some two weeks after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, a video of the head of Russia’s Communist party and deputy in the State Duma, Gennady Zyuganov, was posted on the internet. Zyuganov warned that the Russian-speaking population of Kazakhstan needed protection against “national arbitrariness”, and proposed Russia take control of the Baikonur cosmodrome, military testing grounds in Kazakhstan and Kazakhstan’s uranium industry.

Kazakhstan’s then-foreign minister Mukhtar Tleuberdi dismissed the video, saying it was from two months earlier and that Zyuganov, as the leader of an opposition party, could be expected to “express an opinion that differs or even contradicts the official position of authorities.”

The Kremlin generally echoes remarks such as Tleuberdi’s, explaining that these are comments from individual Russian officials who are not speaking on behalf of the Russian government.

However, on March 27, 2022, when State Duma Deputy Mikhail Delyagin criticised Azerbaijan for violating the ceasefire in the Karabakh region and suggested Russia could use tactical nuclear weapons against Azerbaijan, the Kremlin did put a stop to the outburst. 

Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded on March 29, calling on Delyagin to “control his emotions and refrain from making such statements, moreover in regard to our partners, and Azerbaijan belongs in the category of partner-states.”

Yet Russian officials continue to question the sovereignty of the Central Asian states and freely comment on their internal affairs.

Russian Duma Deputy Sergei Mironov,  who is also a co-chairman of the A Just Russia – For Truth party, criticised Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan in May last year for laws that punish citizens who sign up to fight with Russian or pro-Russian forces in Ukraine.

All three of those Central Asian countries have sentenced at least one citizen to prison following their return home from fighting on the Russian side in the war in Ukraine. Most of those convicted joined the mercenaries of Russia’s Wagner Group or pro-Russian separatist paramilitaries in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk or Luhansk regions.

Around the time of Mironov’s remarks, the Russian government was criticising Kyrgyzstan for passing a law that makes use of Kyrgyz language mandatory in government activities and requires all state employees and civil servants be fluent in the Kyrgyz language.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zakharova expressed concern that the “adoption of the law may undesirably affect the situation with the rights of the non-titular population, including our [Russian] compatriots.”

Bobur Bemuradov, a deputy in Uzbekistan’s lower house of parliament, responded to Prilepin on December 21, saying statements like his “are further weakening Russia’s ever-falling reputation” and suggested the comments violated Uzbekistan’s law by attacking the  country’s constitutional system.”

A former parliamentary deputy and current aide to Uzbekistan’s Ecology Ministry, Rasul Kusherbayev made a rather more abrupt response, saying: “To Mr. Prilepin and any others who wish to conquer Uzbekistan – F**k off  .”

Uzbekistan’s Senate Chairwoman Tanzila Narbayeva said on December 25: “You see various comments on the internet that ‘We will do this, or we will do that with Uzbekistan.’ Uzbekistan will never be someone’s colony.”

President Mirziyoyev cautiously addressed the matter on December 22.

Avoiding any mention of a specific country, Mirziyoyev said: “Powerful centres of the world, which previously defended their goals and interests through diplomacy and politics, have switched to the path of open pressure, confrontation and conflict.”

Also on December 22, Uzbek media reported that the defence and security budget for 2023 was increased by an additional $260mn, bringing the total to more than $3bn.

Uzbek Defence Ministry spokesman Otabek Yuldashev posted on Telegram on December 21 that the “Republic of Uzbekistan has sufficient Armed Forces to ensure [the country’s] security.”

Yuldashev later clarified that the statement was part of preparations to mark the 32^nd anniversary of the creation of Uzbekistan’s Armed Forces.

Kazakh officials have grumbled about threats from Russian officials to seize Kazakh territory.

Kyrgyz officials have for the most part remained quiet about criticism from Russian officials of Kyrgyz laws said to work to the detriment of Russian interests  and influence in Central Asia.

So Uzbekistan’s tough response to Prilepin’s comments is something new.

It will be interesting to see if the Kremlin publicly or privately urges Russian officials to refrain from making chauvinistic remarks about Uzbekistan or allows Russian nationalists to continue making threats about forcing Uzbekistan into a new Russian empire.