Moscow is trying to create a new tool of influence — “water diplomacy.” Having lost its leverage through gas blackmail in Central Asia, the Kremlin is shifting to manipulating water resources, a move that could potentially alter the region's political balance, Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service reports.
The Russian Academy of Sciences has resumed work on a large-scale project to partially redirect the waters of the Ob River toward Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
The Ukrainian Foreign Intelligence has warned that this initiative threatens not only to dehydrate Siberia but also to undermine the stability of states that serve as key transit hubs between Europe and China.
Environmental risk that could extend beyond the continent
The agency says that disrupting the water balance could accelerate the melting of Arctic glaciers, alter sea-level changes, and influence climate processes far beyond Russia.
The rerouting of water flows may lead to desertification in some areas and waterlogging in others, destabilize hydrological systems, and trigger large-scale climate shifts across significant parts of Eurasia.
Billion-dollar ambitions and a new tool of pressure
The project is presented as an effort to “stabilize water supply in southern Russia,” but in essence, it is a modernized version of the Soviet plan to “reverse Siberian rivers,” which the USSR abandoned in 1986 due to unpredictable environmental consequences.
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are no longer susceptible to the Kremlin’s gas manipulations, as both countries are increasingly oriented toward the Chinese market and are attracting Western and Asian investment. Therefore, Moscow is seeking new levers of influence in the region.
“In these conditions, Russia is betting on so-called ‘water diplomacy,’ effectively creating a new instrument of political pressure on post-Soviet countries,” the intelligence service noted.
The financial scale of the project is striking: initial estimates start at $100 billion, but the real strategic costs may turn out to be far greater when long-term environmental consequences for the region and the world are factored in.
