RUSSIA IS moving quickly to secure a dominant position in Kyrgyzstan, as violence grips a Central Asian nation where Moscow is vying for influence with the United States and China.
As deadly riots rocked Kyrgyzstan and forced President Kurmanbek Bakiyev to flee the capital, Bishkek, Russia was the first nation to promise humanitarian help to the country, to send reinforcements to its military contingent there and to welcome the emergence of what it called a “government of national confidence”.
Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin was quick to speak by telephone with Roza Otunbayeva, the former foreign minister who now leads Kyrgyzstan’s interim government, and one of her allies was in Moscow yesterday to seek financial support to alleviate an economic crisis.
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