Relations between Czech Republic and Central Asian countries

The article deals with the Czechia's bilateral relations with the countries of Central Asia (CA) at the post-socialist era. Before the special military operation in Ukraine in 2022, the states of the region had not attracted much attention from Prague because of the focus on the Euro-Atlantic states, the small size of the internal market of CA, and prejudices about the non-democratic nature of the local political regimes.Despite the attempts by several Czech politicians to boost relations with Central Asian states, positive dynamics of co-operation was observed only with Kazakhstan, which is an important provider of energy resources. The author notes that the escalation of the Ukrainian crisis in 2022 led to a surge in Czech interest in CA, because of the general policy of the European Union, which declared the importance of promoting the interests of the association in this foreign policy track, Prague's desire to strengthen its own voice in the international stage, and the desire to support local producers, who have acutely felt the consequences of restrictions on exports of their products to Russia. It has been revealed that in 2022–2023, the Czechia's political dialogue with the Central Asian countries visibly strengthened, trade and economic relations increased. In these two years, trade turnover between the CA countries (except Turkmenistan) and the Czechia demonstrated a multiple growth both in absolute and relative terms. However, such an unnatural spurt was justified mainly by using Central Asian states as re-export points for goods intended for shipment to Russia.The author claims that this situation confronts the pragmatic and value-based position of the Czech authorities: on the one hand, they promoted Czech business, by maintaining a high level of relations with Central Asian states, but on the other hand, they also deliberately violated the anti-Russian sanctions, by supplying goods to Central Asia.