As the Kyrgyz opposition was taking control of the nation’s cities after violent mass protests against the corrupt rule of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, it got strong support from an unlikely source — the Kremlin.
While the United States, the EU and China were still referring to Roza Otunbayeva as “the leader of the opposition,” Moscow became the first country to recognize the new government in Bishkek.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin quickly offered Russian financial aid to the new Kyrgyz authorities — over $50 million in emergency assistance. Almazbek Atambayev, the deputy head of the interim government, flew to Moscow the day after Bakiyev’s ouster in Bishkek .
Moscow had more than one grudge to bear against Bakiyev.? He failed to deliver on his promise to close the U.S. airbase at Manas and reneged on an agreement he signed with Medvedev last year to establish a military training center in Kyrgyzstan for the Collective Security Treaty Organization. In addition, Bakiyev and his entourage have reportedly embezzled hundreds of millions of dollars of Russian financial aid and have seized assets in large Russian companies that operated in the country.
The Kremlin had been in close touch with the opposition leaders long before the events of this month and quietly supported their campaign to depose Bakiyev. The Kremlin’s strategy was to gradually build internal pressure on Bakiyev and orchestrate a parliamentary protest to make him step down. But a series of hasty and uncoordinated decisions by the opposition to initiate mass rallies in major cities overtook the Kremlin’s planning.?
Moscow’s immediate public support for Roza Otunbayeva, interim head of the provisional government, gave the opposition a modicum of international legitimacy to consolidate power. Russia then helped the new leaders in Bishkek find the best way to orchestrate a legitimate transfer of power to the interim government, pressuring Bakiyev to resign and leave for exile in Kazakhstan.
President Dmitry Medvedev personally worked with U.S. President Barack Obama to develop a seemingly unified international response to events in Kyrgyzstan. It would be inaccurate to say that the Kremlin has suddenly developed a taste for promoting democracy in Central Asia. But the revolution in Kyrgyzstan demonstrates that democratic regime change is now an effective instrument in Moscow’s toolbox.
Vladimir Frolov is president of LEFF Group, a government-relations and PR company.