Central Asia: The Space Between Empires

When Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev sat beside Vladimir Putin in Omsk recently and suggested that it might be time to freeze the war in Ukraine and return to negotiations, his words attracted attention well beyond Central Asia. They were notable not simply because they were spoken in Putin's presence, but because of what they revealed about a region that has spent more than three decades quietly redefining its place in the world.