🎙 Statement by Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the Plenary Session of the #CSTO, #CIS and #SCO Conference on Security in Central Asia and Afghanistan (Moscow, October 16, 2026)

💬 Sergey Lavrov: Everyone has an interest in ensuring that Central Asia remains a region of peace & prosperity, underpinned by broad, mutually beneficial cooperation among all the states in the region and, of course, their immediate neighbours.

For Russia, this region holds particular strategic significance: geographical, historical and humanitarian factors mean that important Russian interests are concentrated here.

☝️ We see one way of safeguarding these interests in maintaining relations of alliance and strategic partnership on an equal footing with all Central Asian countries, helping them ensure peaceful and secure development both bilaterally and through the integration mechanisms operating in the region.

We assess the situation in Central Asia as stable and conducive to international cooperation, despite the well-known risks. We appreciate the enormous contribution made by the region’s Leaders to creating all the necessary conditions for this.

At the same time, we must not lose sight of the risks we all know about, which arise primarily from the actions of certain external players seeking to pursue their narrow, self-serving geopolitical objectives without regard for the region’s specific circumstances or the interests of the friendly peoples of Central Asia.

Today, especially before this audience, there is no need to convince anyone that the countries of the “collective West” have been trying for many years to create flashpoints along our borders. In particular, their role in deliberately engineering the Ukrainian crisis is well known – through years of relentless eastward NATO expansion towards Russia’s borders, as well as through unqualified support for the openly neo-Nazi, Russophobic Kiev regime, which is once again showing its true colours in these very days.

❗️ In this connection, I would emphasise that absolutely any country in the world, including our partners in Central Asia, could fall victim to the West’s geopolitical expansion and the “colour revolutions” it orchestrates. Such attempts have already been made against a number of our neighbours, but were successfully thwarted.

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Developments in Afghanistan could still adversely affect regional security, especially if unscrupulous external players exploit them for short-term interests that have nothing in common with those of Central Asian countries and Russia.

We strive to be realistic and, in this regard, understand that overcoming the grim legacy left by the US and other NATO countries after two decades of inglorious occupation of Afghanistan will take a long time.

👉 We proceed from the understanding that the Taliban government is a reality that must be reckoned with. A growing number of countries are coming to recognise this. On the political front, we are working to consolidate external support for the authorities in Kabul and those aspects of their work that objectively serve the interests of regional security.

Russia fully shares the vision of Afghanistan as an independent, united and peaceful state, free from war and drugs. We regard as an important success the fact that the latest meeting of the Moscow Format Consultations on Afghanistan, held in Moscow in early October, reaffirmed the participating countries’ rejection of a confrontational approach towards Kabul.

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