Why the EU should pay attention to Putin’s Kyrgyzstan visit

Russian president Vladimir Putin’s recent visit to Kyrgyzstan was no routine diplomatic visit.

Putin was accompanied by an entourage of high-level officials, including six government ministers, Central Bank governor Elvira Nabiullina, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, general director of Rosatom Aleksei Likhachev, and the oligarch Roman Abramovich.

As the EU has deepened its ties to the region earlier this year with the first EU-Central Asia summit organised in April, the EU should follow more closely Kyrgyzstan’s geopolitical vector, considering the country enjoys preferential market access to the EU, as well as renewed cooperation and partnership opportunities.

The very size and composition of the Russian delegation and their red-carpet reception in Bishkek (November 25-27) show accelerating rapprochement between Bishkek and Moscow that casts significant and ominous doubt over future respect and protection of human rights in what was once Central Asia’s most promising democracy.

But it’s not too late.

Kyrgyzstan’s partners, including the European Union, EU member states, and international bodies like the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe can and should work to counteract Russia’s influence.

According to Russian media, Putin went to Kyrgyzstan to discuss “key issues of bilateral cooperation” with president Sadyr Japarov.

Putin also attended a council meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organization.

No breakthrough agreements were reached, especially concerning the discrimination and harassment of Central Asian, including Kyrgyz, migrants in Russia.

But the two sides signed several bilateral treaties strengthening economic and logistical cooperation, as well as a joint declaration on the “deep integration of allied relations.”

Kyrgyzstan’s human rights backsliding has not happened overnight, with the country’s leadership already borrowing heavily from Russia’s authoritarian playbook for the past several years.

In April 2024, Kyrgyzstan enacted a "foreign representatives" law that largely mirrors Russia's abusive 2012 legislation, and had been strongly criticised by key international actors and human rights organisations.

The law applies the stigmatising designation of “foreign representative” to any non-governmental organisation receiving any amount of foreign funding and engaging in vaguely defined “political activity.”

Shutting down civil society, shutting up journalists

The Russian equivalent was found to violate international law and in particular the rights to freedom of expression, of association, and to private life. Many civil society groups, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) and youth associations, shut down or ceased their activities in the country rather than be included in the “foreign representatives” register.

Other forms of assault on freedom of expression directed at independent media have been equally severe. In August 2024, the Supreme Court upheld the liquidation of Kloop Media, an award-winning investigative outlet.

In October 2024, four journalists from Temirov Live received prison sentences for their anti-corruption reporting.

One of them, Makhabat Tazhibek Kyzy,  sentenced to six years, has faced death threats in prison, which the authorities have dismissed despite her desperate written pleas for help.

In August 2025, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found Kyzy’s detention to be arbitrary and called on the Kyrgyz authorities to release her immediately — a call the government has ignored.

Throughout 2025, the Kyrgyz authorities continued a spate of politically motivated criminal investigations and convictions of independent journalists and human rights defenders.

Parliament also adopted a draconian mass media law with vaguely worded provisions that may outlaw legitimate journalistic work.

Efforts to muzzle independent home-grown journalism juxtapose starkly with the paraded establishment of Nomad TV, a new television station with direct ties to the Kremlin’s media empire RT (Russia Today). The station, run by former RT producer Anna Abakumova, began broadcasting in Kyrgyzstan mere days before Putin's arrival.

Evrazia Center — an organisation founded by fugitive pro-Kremlin Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shor — is said to be training the station’s newly recruited journalists. Nomad TV joins existing Russian state channels that already dominate Kyrgyzstan's broadcasting landscape.

Putin’s celebrated visit to Bishkek reflects a grimmer reality in which Kyrgyzstan appears to be following Russia down a path that leads to the destruction of civil liberties, systematic silencing of dissent, and the complete erosion of the rule of law.

The EU, its members, and international institutions should increase their support for independent media and civil society in Kyrgyzstan, while publicly condemning the imprisonment of journalists and pushing for their immediate release and removal of their convictions.

The EU and its members should also uphold and act on existing human rights conditions in their current trade and cooperation agreements, such as the EU’s enhanced partnership and cooperation agreement.

Kyrgyzstan's international partners should make clear that there are consequences for abandoning democratic commitments and adopting Putin's authoritarian model. The country has not yet reached the depths of Russia's repression, but the trajectory is alarmingly clear.

A robust response by the international community to Kyrgyzstan’s authoritarian slide will be critical to determining whether Kyrgyzstan can successfully reverse course.

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