“TASHKENT, Dec 22 (Reuters) - Uzbekistan's foreign ministry has summoned the Russian ambassador over a call by a Russian politician to annex the former Soviet republic, it said late on Thursday.
Russian nationalist writer Zakhar Prilepin, who is co-chair of the "A Just Russia - For Truth" party, said this week he believed Russia should annex Uzbekistan and other countries whose citizens travel en masse to Russia for work.
The Uzbek foreign ministry told Russian Ambassador Oleg Malginov on Thursday that Tashkent was "deeply concerned" about these "provocative" comments.
Malginov, in turn, said Prilepin's comments had nothing to do with the official Kremlin position, the ministry said.“
The article goes on to say “Russia's annexation of Crimea and later other areas of Ukraine has caused unease among other ex-Soviet republics“
No kidding they’re twitchy.
News that comes out late on Friday can be important as people are trying to bury it. That goes double just before western Christmas when Russia is pretty sure the West isn’t paying attention.
I happened to see Inside Russia -Constantin talking about rumours of a plan to annex Uzbekistan and other former Soviet republics. He’s nervous because he and many other Russians fled to Uzbekistan when Russia invaded Ukraine.
Putin has announced that all who opposed the war are traitors and deserve death or prison. The expatriate Russians are not considered refugees so they aren’t welcome elsewhere- they just found sanctuary in Uzbekistan.
There’s good cause for Uzbekistan to worry.
Putin used these sorts of tactics- getting a hardliner to beg him to invade Ukraine for example long before he invaded. It’s part of the propaganda machine. Testing the public, getting them used to an idea, eventually coaching them to call for action.
I haven’t checked into the reasoning behind it- Constantin takes a while to get to his point and I was cooking our Christmas dinner yesterday but it was something to do with oil.
It struck me that if oil is involved and Russia is in the mood to steal resources- it’s another step towards Gog Magog. Not to mention Uzbekistan is part of the ancient area of Magog.
I‘m watching with interest
If Putin is about to wind up his Ukraine project- he will likely be looking for spoil to refill his treasury. If he looks south- he might look past Uzbekistan and gaze at Israel instead. One hungry bear on the prowl.
