Between Moscow and sovereignty: comparative analysis of Central Asian leaders’ discursive positioning toward Russian foreign policy

Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine revealed strikingly divergent discursive strategies amongst Central Asian states, challenging assumptions of regional uniformity. This study analyses official presidential statements from 2014–2024, comparing them with Russian foreign policy discourse through critical discourse analysis. Five distinct patterns were identified: Kazakhstan’s pragmatic distancing, Uzbekistan’s confident neutrality, Kyrgyzstan’s forced pragmatism, Tajikistan’s strategic silence and Turkmenistan’s institutionalized non-participation. Convergence with Russian narratives is determined by structural factors – economic dependence, military obligations, institutional membership and demographic composition – rather than ideological proximity. Central Asian states practise discursive hedging only where Russian narratives threaten territorial integrity or sovereignty. The findings demonstrate that weak actors actively reinterpret imposed narratives under asymmetric dependence, with discursive agency manifesting through strategic reinterpretation, selective convergence and calculated ambiguity.