Russian President Vladimir Putin is also facing criticism from his allies over the war in Ukraine. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for an end to the fighting and support for peaceful initiatives at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit held in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, on August 31. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev also said in July that it was difficult to understand the causes of the war.
According to experts who spoke to The Wall Street Journal, Russia’s partners are feeling the negative effects of the war more acutely. India is facing pressure from the West because it buys Russian oil; in July, a Russian missile struck a cargo ship in the Black Sea, killing 4 Indians. Kazakhstan, meanwhile, has been affected by disruptions at the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, which is critical to its oil exports. Hanna Notte said Moscow’s preoccupation with Ukraine had emboldened the former Soviet republics to issue harsher criticism.
Why it matters
This picture shows that as Moscow wages the war in Ukraine, it is facing rising costs not only from the West but also from partners with which it has economic and political ties. For India, energy trade with Russia has to be considered together with the security dimension following Western pressure and the attack on a cargo ship. For Kazakhstan, meanwhile, the war’s impact on regional energy transportation brings to the fore the question of how its approach to Russia will be balanced with its economic interests. Putin’s shrinking room for maneuver in the former Soviet space is enabling these countries to express their criticism of Moscow more openly; however, it is not yet clear what the concrete political consequences of this stance will be.
Background
Putin is not a new name in the FikirPilot archive: we published a news article mentioning him in the past 90 days; that article is dated September 1, 2026.