Out of the frying pan into the fire

When Vladimir Putin addressed participants at the congress of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs on March 26, he struck a familiar tone: resilience in the face of sanctions, adaptation to geopolitical pressure and a steady movement toward economic independence.

Kazakhstan is gradually increasing its oil exports through Azerbaijan, strengthening the country’s role as a key transit energy hub in the Caspian region and reflecting broader changes in Eurasian energy logistics.

Kazakhstan has taken a step that its leadership portrays as a historic recalibration of the state. In a nationwide referendum held on March 15, voters overwhelmingly backed a new constitution that reshapes the country’s political architecture and embeds a sweeping narrative of Kazakh statehood stretching back more than a millennium.

A series of drone strikes on Russian oil pipeline infrastructure in the Black Sea have disrupted shipments of Kazakh crude via the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), exposing the vulnerability of one of Central Asia’s most important export routes amid the war in Ukraine.