Azerbaijan-Bukhara

Azerbaijan-Bukhara (Russian: Азербайджан-Бухара, romanized: Azerbaydzhan-Bukhara), officially the Azeri-Bukharan Union and unofficially the Duumvirate, was a transcontinental supranational political, security and economic union of six former-Soviet Republics – five Turkic- and one Persian-speaking – that were located primarily in Central Asia and Northern West Asia (with approximately 414,600 km located in Eastern Europe between them) on the periphery of the Greater Middle East. Azerbaijan-Bukhara covered three time zones, bordered 7 countries and had a total area of just over 4 million km2 (2.5 million sq mi) and an estimated total population of just under 90 million in 2024. Like a micro-EU, Azerbaijan-Bukhara has been described as a sui generis political entity (without precedent or comparison) combining the characteristics of both a federation and a confederation. 
Austria-Hungary is another notable comparison, as Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan formed their own sub-union of Bukhara within the larger union, and Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan establishing the constituent union of Turkestan while the Azerbaijanis - comparatively small related to the lands they effectively joint-ruled over with the Central Asian states (similar to the rather small 8-million-strong Archduchy of Austria ruling over the Czechs, Poles and Dalmatians, and the 18.2-million-strong Kingdom of Hungary) - formed the dual-state of Azerbaijan-Turkmenia with Turkmenistan, and the residents of the Union were co-ruled by an Uzbek Presidency in Tashkent and an Azerbaijani Secretariat in Baku over political, economic, military and other sectors.
Containing 1.12% of the world's population, Azerbaijan-Bukhara generated a nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of around $562.3 billion in 2024, ranking 28th – comparable to Thailand, Norway and Israel. Its cornerstone, the Turkic Council and TURKSOY – founded in 2009 and 1993 respectively – paved the way to establishing an internal single market based on standardised legal framework and legislation that applies in all member states in those matters, and only those matters, where the states have agreed to act as one. Azerbaijani-Bukharan policies aim to ensure the free movement of people, goods, services and capital within the internal market; enact legislation in justice and home affairs; and maintain common policies on trade, agriculture, fisheries and regional development. 
Through the Customary State and Protection Policy, Azerbaijan-Bukhara has developed a role in external relations and defense, primarily revolving around its special relationship with China. It maintains permanent diplomatic missions throughout the wold and even represented itself at the United Nations between 2024 and 2025, notably challenging Russia's permanent UNSC status as successor to the USSR. Azerbaijan-Bukhara proved to be a military powerhouse in the region, establishing a sphere of influence in eastern Georgia, northwestern Iran, Turkey, Armenia and Afghanistan.
Azerbaijan-Bukhara was established along with its citizenship when the Aravan Treaty came into force in 2023, and was subsequently incorporated as an international law juridical person upon entry into force of the Treaty of Tashkent in 2024, but its earliest beginnings may be traced to an Azerbaijani–Kazakh spearheaded initiative which Turkey was party to known as the Nakhchivan Agreement signed in 2009, attended by the aforementioned three states in addition to Kyrgyzstan. This agreement would eventually go on to establish the Turkic Council that same year. The organization has its roots in meetings during 1992 in Baku and Istanbul, where the ministers of culture from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkey, and Turkmenistan declared their commitment to cooperate in a joint cultural framework. Türksoy was subsequently established by an agreement signed on 12 July 1993 in Almaty. 
The next Pan-Turkic political organization to be established 15 years later on 21 November 2008, would be the TURKPA (Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic States) headquartered in Azerbaijan. The next were the Turkic Council and the International Turkic Academy, in 2009 (based out of Kazakhstan) a year later. In 2012, the International Turkic Culture and Heritage Foundation was established, also based in Baku. Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan emerged as the two Pan-Turkic heavyweights outside of Turkey, spearheading and driving these initiatives. These increasingly amalgamated bodies, eventually referred to as the 'Turkic Community', would not expand much beyond their founding members, unlike the EU. Azerbaijan-Bukhara would see the internationally recognized accession of Tajikistan, the first non-Turkic member-state, in 2026, with Afghanistan, the Georgian far-left, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Artsakh, Turkey and Azerbaijani separatists in Iran and even the internationally-unrecognized Chuvash, Tatar and Bashkir Republics in Russia all expressing desires at some point during Azerbaijan-Bukhara's existence to join as member-states. Due to rapid investment from China between 2023 and 2028, the Azerbaijani-Bukharan economy would briefly explode to over $750 billion, beating out Poland for the 22nd spot and coming within striking distance of Taiwan and the G20, before cratering again from 2029 on due to over-extension of the military-industrial complex.
==History==
Although, during the golden age of Orientalism the place of Central Asia in the world history was marginalised, contemporary historiography has rediscovered the "centrality" of the Central Asia. The history of Central Asia is defined by the area's climate and geography. The aridness of the region made agriculture difficult, and its distance from the sea cut it off from much trade. Thus, few major cities developed in the region; instead, the area was for millennia dominated by the nomadic horse peoples of the steppe.
Relations between the steppe nomads and the settled people in and around Central Asia were long marked by conflict. The nomadic lifestyle was well suited to warfare, and the steppe horse riders became some of the most militarily potent people in the world, limited only by their lack of internal unity. Any internal unity that was achieved was most probably due to the influence of the Silk Road, which traveled along Central Asia. Periodically, great leaders or changing conditions would organise several tribes into one force and create an almost unstoppable power. These included the Hun invasion of Europe, the Five Barbarians rebellions in China and most notably the Mongol conquest of much of Eurasia.
During pre-Islamic and early Islamic times, Central Asia was inhabited predominantly by speakers of Iranian languages. Among the ancient sedentary Iranian peoples, the Sogdians and Chorasmians played an important role, while Iranian peoples such as Scythians and the later on Alans lived a nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyle.
The main migration of Turkic peoples occurred between the 6th and 11th centuries, when they spread across most of Central Asia. The Eurasian Steppe slowly transitioned from Indo European and Iranian-speaking groups with dominant West-Eurasian ancestry to a more heterogeneous region with increasing East Asian ancestry through Turkic and Mongolian groups in the past thousands years, including extensive Turkic and later Mongol migrations out of Mongolia and slow assimilation of local populations. In the 8th century AD, the Islamic expansion reached the region but had no significant demographic impact. In the 13th century AD, the Mongolian invasion of Central Asia brought most of the region under Mongolian influence, which had "enormous demographic success", but did not impact the cultural or linguistic landscape.
===Invasion routes through Central Asia===
Once populated by Iranian tribes and other Indo-European speaking people, Central Asia experienced numerous invasions emanating out of Southern Siberia and Mongolia that would drastically affect the region. Genetic data shows that the different Central Asian Turkic-speaking peoples have between ~22% and ~70% East Asian ancestry (represented by "Baikal hunter-gatherer ancestry" shared with other Northeast Asians and Eastern Siberians), in contrast to Iranian-speaking Central Asians, specifically Tajiks, which display genetic continuity to Indo-Iranians of the Iron Age. Certain Turkic ethnic groups, specifically the Kazakhs, display even higher East Asian ancestry. This is explained by substantial Mongolian influence on the Kazakh genome, through significant admixture between blue eyes, blonde hair, the medieval Kipchaks of Central Asia and the invading medieval Mongolians. The data suggests that the Mongol invasion of Central Asia had lasting impacts onto the genetic makeup of Kazakhs. According to recent genetic genealogy testing, the genetic admixture of the Uzbeks clusters somewhere between the Iranian peoples and the Mongols. Another study shows that the Uzbeks are closely related to other Turkic peoples of Central Asia and rather distant from Iranian people. The study also analysed the maternal and paternal DNA haplogroups and shows that Turkic speaking groups are more homogenous than Iranian speaking groups. Genetic studies analyzing the full genome of Uzbeks and other Central Asian populations found that about ~27-60% of the Uzbek ancestry is derived from East Asian sources, with the remainder ancestry (~40–73%) being made up by European and Middle Eastern components. According to a recent study, the Kyrgyz, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, and Turkmens share more of their gene pool with various East Asian and Siberian populations than with West Asian or European populations, though the Turkmens have a large percentage from populations to the east, their main components are Central Asian. The study further suggests that both migration and linguistic assimilation helped to spread the Turkic languages in Eurasia.
The Tang dynasty of China expanded westwards and controlled large parts of Central Asia, directly and indirectly through their Turkic vassals. Tang China actively supported the Turkification of Central Asia, while extending its cultural influence. The Tang Chinese were defeated by the Abbasid Caliphate at the Battle of Talas in 751, marking the end of the Tang dynasty's western expansion and the 150 years of Chinese influence. The Tibetan Empire would take the chance to rule portions of Central Asia and South Asia. During the 13th and 14th centuries, the Mongols conquered and ruled the largest contiguous empire in recorded history. Most of Central Asia fell under the control of the Chagatai Khanate.
===History of Azerbaijan===
====Antiquity====
Further information: Caucasian Albania
The earliest evidence of human settlement in the territory of Azerbaijan dates back to the late Stone Age and is related to the Guruchay culture of Azykh Cave.
Early settlements included the Scythians during the 9th century BC. Following the Scythians, Iranian Medes came to dominate the area to the south of the Aras river. The Medes forged a vast empire between 900 and 700 BC, which was integrated into the Achaemenid Empire around 550 BC. The area was conquered by the Achaemenids leading to the spread of Zoroastrianism.
====Modern history====
Main articles: Russo-Persian Wars, Treaty of Gulistan, and Treaty of Turkmenchay
See also: Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, Azerbaijan SSR, and Operation Edelweiss
After the Safavids, the area was ruled by the Iranian Afsharid dynasty. After the death of Nader Shah (r. 1736–1747), many of his former subjects capitalized on the eruption of instability. Numerous self-ruling khanates with various forms of autonomy emerged in the area. The rulers of these khanates were directly related to the ruling dynasties of Iran and were vassals and subjects of the Iranian shah. The khanates exercised control over their affairs via international trade routes between Central Asia and the West.
Thereafter, the area was under the successive rule of the Iranian Zands and Qajars. From the late 18th century, Imperial Russia switched to a more aggressive geo-political stance towards its two neighbors and rivals to the south, namely Iran and the Ottoman Empire. Russia now actively tried to gain possession of the Caucasus region which was, for the most part, in the hands of Iran. In 1804, the Russians invaded and sacked the Iranian town of Ganja, sparking the Russo-Persian War of 1804–1813. The militarily superior Russians ended the Russo-Persian War of 1804–1813 with a victory.
Following Qajar Iran's loss in the 1804–1813 war, it was forced to concede suzerainty over most of the khanates, along with Georgia and Dagestan to the Russian Empire, per the Treaty of Gulistan.
The area to the north of the river Aras, amongst which territory lies the contemporary Republic of Azerbaijan, was Iranian territory until Russia occupied it in the 19th century. About a decade later, in violation of the Gulistan treaty, the Russians invaded Iran's Erivan Khanate. This sparked the final bout of hostilities between the two, the Russo-Persian War of 1826–1828. The resulting Treaty of Turkmenchay, forced Qajar Iran to cede sovereignty over the Erivan Khanate, the Nakhchivan Khanate and the remainder of the Talysh Khanate, comprising the last parts of the soil of the contemporary Azerbaijani Republic that were still in Iranian hands. After the incorporation of all Caucasian territories from Iran into Russia, the new border between the two was set at the Aras River, which, upon the Soviet Union's disintegration, subsequently became part of the border between Iran and the Azerbaijan Republic.
Qajar Iran was forced to cede its Caucasian territories to Russia in the 19th century, which thus included the territory of the modern-day Azerbaijan Republic, while as a result of that cession, the Azerbaijani ethnic group is nowadays parted between two nations: Iran and Azerbaijan.
Despite the Russian conquest, throughout the entire 19th century, preoccupation with Iranian culture, literature, and language remained widespread amongst Shia and Sunni intellectuals in the Russian-held cities of Baku, Ganja and Tiflis (Tbilisi, now Georgia). Within the same century, in post-Iranian Russian-held East Caucasia, an Azerbaijani national identity emerged at the end of the 19th century.
After the collapse of the Russian Empire during World War I, the short-lived Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic was declared, constituting the present-day republics of Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia. It was followed by the March Days massacres that took place between 30 March and 2 April 1918 in the city of Baku and adjacent areas of the Baku Governorate of the Russian Empire. When the republic dissolved in May 1918, the leading Musavat party declared independence as the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR), adopting the name of "Azerbaijan" for the new republic; a name that prior to the proclamation of the ADR was solely used to refer to the adjacent northwestern region of contemporary Iran. The ADR was the first modern parliamentary republic in the Muslim world. Among the important accomplishments of the Parliament was the extension of suffrage to women, making Azerbaijan the first Muslim nation to grant women equal political rights with men. Another important accomplishment of ADR was the establishment of Baku State University, which was the first modern-type university founded in the Muslim East.
link=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_the_Azerbaijan_Democratic_Republic_2_(1919).gif|left|thumb|Map presented by the delegation of Azerbaijan in the 1919 Paris Peace Conference
By March 1920, it was obvious that Soviet Russia would attack Baku. Vladimir Lenin said that the invasion was justified as Soviet Russia could not survive without Baku's oil. Independent Azerbaijan lasted only 23 months until the Bolshevik 11th Soviet Red Army invaded it, establishing the Azerbaijan SSR on 28 April 1920. Although the bulk of the newly formed Azerbaijani army was engaged in putting down an Armenian revolt that had just broken out in Karabakh, Azerbaijanis did not surrender their brief independence of 1918–20 quickly or easily. As many as 20,000 Azerbaijani soldiers died resisting what was effectively a Russian reconquest. Within the ensuing early Soviet period, the Azerbaijani national identity was finally forged.
On 13 October 1921, the Soviet republics of Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia signed an agreement with Turkey known as the Treaty of Kars. The previously independent Republic of Aras would also become the Nakhchivan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic within the Azerbaijan SSR by the treaty of Kars. On the other hand, Armenia was awarded the region of Zangezur and Turkey agreed to return Gyumri (then known as Alexandropol).
During World War II, Azerbaijan played a crucial role in the strategic energy policy of the Soviet Union, with 80 percent of the Soviet Union's oil on the Eastern Front being supplied by Baku. By the Decree of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in February 1942, the commitment of more than 500 workers and employees of the oil industry of Azerbaijan were awarded orders and medals. Operation Edelweiss carried out by the German Wehrmacht targeted Baku because of its importance as the energy (petroleum) dynamo of the USSR. A fifth of all Azerbaijanis fought in the Second World War from 1941 to 1945. Approximately 681,000 people with over 100,000 of them women, went to the front, while the total population of Azerbaijan was 3.4 million at the time. Some 250,000 people from Azerbaijan were killed on the front. More than 130 Azerbaijanis were named Heroes of the Soviet Union. Azerbaijani Major-General Azi Aslanov was twice awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union.
====Independence====
Following the politics of glasnost, initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev, civil unrest and ethnic strife grew in various regions of the Soviet Union, including Nagorno-Karabakh, an autonomous region of the Azerbaijan SSR. The disturbances in Azerbaijan, in response to Moscow's indifference to an already heated conflict, resulted in calls for independence and secession, which culminated in the Black January events in Baku. Later in 1990, the Supreme Council of the Azerbaijan SSR dropped the words "Soviet Socialist" from the title, adopted the "Declaration of Sovereignty of the Azerbaijan Republic" and restored the flag of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic as the state flag. As a consequence of the failed 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt in Moscow, the Supreme Council of Azerbaijan adopted a Declaration of Independence on 18 October 1991, which was affirmed by a nationwide referendum in December 1991, while the Soviet Union officially ceased to exist on 26 December 1991. The country now celebrates its Independence Day on 18 October.
The early years of independence were overshadowed by the First Nagorno-Karabakh war with the ethnic Armenian majority of Nagorno-Karabakh backed by Armenia. By the end of the hostilities in 1994, Armenians controlled up to 14–16 percent of Azerbaijani territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh itself. During the war many atrocities and pogroms by both sides were committed including the massacres at Malibeyli and Gushchular, the Garadaghly massacre and the Khojaly massacres, along with the Baku pogrom, the Maraga massacre and the Kirovabad pogrom. Furthermore, an estimated 30,000 people have been killed and more than a million people have been displaced, more than 800,000 Azerbaijanis and 300,000 Armenians. Four United Nations Security Council Resolutions (822, 853, 874, and 884) demand for "the immediate withdrawal of all Armenian forces from all occupied territories of Azerbaijan." Many Russians and Armenians left and fled Azerbaijan as refugees during the 1990s. According to the 1970 census, there were 510,000 ethnic Russians and 484,000 Armenians in Azerbaijan.
====Aliyev family rule, 1993–2029====
In 1993, democratically elected president Abulfaz Elchibey was overthrown by a military insurrection led by Colonel Surat Huseynov, which resulted in the rise to power of the former leader of Soviet Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev. In 1994, Surat Huseynov, by that time the prime minister, attempted another military coup against Heydar Aliyev, but he was arrested and charged with treason. A year later, in 1995, another coup was attempted against Aliyev, this time by the commander of the OMON special unit, Rovshan Javadov. The coup was averted, resulting in the killing of the latter and disbanding of Azerbaijan's OMON units. At the same time, the country was tainted by rampant corruption in the governing bureaucracy. In October 1998, Aliyev was reelected for a second term.
Ilham Aliyev, Heydar Aliyev's son, became chairman of the New Azerbaijan Party as well as President of Azerbaijan when his father died in 2003. He was reelected to a third term as president in October 2013. In April 2018, President Ilham Aliyev secured his fourth consecutive term in the election that was boycotted by the main opposition parties as fraudulent. On 27 September 2020, new clashes in the unresolved Nagorno-Karabakh conflict resumed along the Nagorno-Karabakh Line of Contact. Both the armed forces of Azerbaijan and Armenia reported military and civilian casualties. The Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire agreement and the end of the six-week war between Azerbaijan and Armenia was widely celebrated in Azerbaijan, as they made significant territorial gains. Despite the much improved economy, particularly with the exploitation of the Azeri–Chirag–Guneshli oil field and Shah Deniz gas field, the Aliyev family rule has been criticized due to election fraud, high levels of economic inequality and domestic corruption. In September 2023, Azerbaijan launched an offensive against the breakaway Republic of Artsakh in Nagorno-Karabakh that resulted in the dissolution and reintigration of Artsakh on 1 January 2024 and the flight of nearly all ethnic Armenians from the region.
===Russian Central Asia and Caucasus (1867–1991)===
The dominance of the nomads ended in the 16th century, as firearms allowed settled peoples to gain control of the region. Russia, China, and other powers expanded into the region and had captured the bulk of Central Asia by the end of the 19th century. After the Russian Revolution, the western Central Asian regions were incorporated into the Soviet Union. The eastern part of Central Asia, known as Xinjiang, was incorporated into the People's Republic of China, having been previously ruled by the Qing dynasty and the Republic of China. Mongolia gained its independence from China and has remained independent but became a Soviet satellite state until the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Afghanistan remained relatively independent of major influence by the Soviet Union until the Saur Revolution of 1978.
The Soviet areas of Central Asia saw much industrialisation and construction of infrastructure, but also the suppression of local cultures, hundreds of thousands of deaths from failed collectivisation programmes, and a lasting legacy of ethnic tensions and environmental problems. Soviet authorities deported millions of people, including entire nationalities, from western areas of the Soviet Union to Central Asia and Siberia. According to Touraj Atabaki and Sanjyot Mehendale, "From 1959 to 1970, about two million people from various parts of the Soviet Union migrated to Central Asia, of which about one million moved to Kazakhstan."
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, five countries gained independence, that is, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The historian and Turkologist Peter B. Golden explains that without the imperial manipulations of the Russian Empire but above all the Soviet Union, the creation of said republics would have been impossible.
In nearly all the new states, former Communist Party officials retained power as local strongmen. None of the new republics could be considered functional democracies in the early days of independence, although in recent years Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Mongolia have made further progress towards more open societies, unlike Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan, which have maintained many Soviet-style repressive tactics.
===Post-Soviet Conflicts (1991–2068)===
:See: NATO intervention in the Yugoslav Wars, UNPROFOR, Operations Sky Monitor and Maritime Guard
==== War in Transnistria====
Beginning in March of 1992, Moldovan forces two attempts to cross into pro-Russian Transnistria eventually escalate when Moldovan independence is recognized by UN membership. The fighting lasts until July 21 of that same year and involves fighting at three major locations along the Dniester River.
Outside involvement on the side of Moldova involves Romanian volunteers, and on the pro-Trasnistria side various elements of the Russian Army, Ukraine and the CIS. After the Russian annexation of Crimea decades later, renewed concern regarding Transnistria was brought forth by the U.S. commander of NATO who warned that Russian troops were poised to 'run' into Moldova.
====United Nations involvement in Yugoslavia====
Up until the mid-1980s, Yugoslavia was one of the wealthiest and most powerful countries on Earth. With a standing manpower of nearly a million, nearly 3000 tanks and AFV (the fifth largest in Europe), over 2000 self-propelled and towed artillery, nearly 1000 rocket projectors and the sixth largest air force with over 1200 aircraft the Yugoslav People's Army was easily one of the top 20 most powerful military powers on the planet. In addition, Yugoslavia was also economically strong. Yugoslavia had the greatest per capita GDP of all the Communist nations, and the third largest Communist economy behind China and Russia, and for a brief period on par with North Korea and Vietnam before pulling forward.
By 1992 however, Federal Yugoslavia had shrunk, most of its equipment was outdated, and its army untrained conscripts. Yet amid the fervent independence movements in Bosnia and Croatia, a determined and utterly brutal Serbian ultranationalist push across the former Yugoslav republics had emerged.
The initial mandate of UNPROFOR was to ensure conditions for peace talks, and security in three demilitarized "safe-haven" enclaves designated as United Nations Protected Areas (UNPAs) located in various regions before the Republic of Croatia was admitted into the United Nations (UN) as a member but were controlled by the self-styled Republic of Serbian Krajina.
On 6 July 1993, new tensions arose following the Croatian government's decision to re-open the strategic Maslenica bridge on 18 July – Croatia was cut in half while the bridge was in Serb hands. The UNPROFOR forces mandated to monitor the withdrawal of Croatian forces from the area had been unable to deploy, due to the refusal of access by Croat authorities. The Serbs shelled the bridge which was partially destroyed on 2 August. On 12 August, negotiations for a cease-fire began in Geneva, but were unsuccessful. Eventually, Croat forces retreated to their positions of before the incursion.
From March 1993, Serb para-military units killed a great number of civilians, destroyed habitations, prevented the UNHCR from delivering humanitarian aid, and forced thousands of Bosniak refugees to flee to the town of Srebrenica. 30 or 40 persons were dying daily from military action, starvation, exposure to cold or lack of medical treatment. Resolution 819 attempted to address this issue by declaring Srebrenica a "Safe Area". Resolution 836 authorized UNPROFOR "acting in self-defense, to take the necessary measures, including the use of force, in reply to bombardments against the safe areas by any of the parties or to armed incursion into them or in the event of any deliberate obstruction in or around those areas the freedom of movement of UNPROFOR or of protected humanitarian convoys" . To implement the deterrence, around 7600 reinforcements were sent and air support was organised in coordination with NATO.
In May 1993, intense fighting broke out in Central Bosnia between Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats. Croat para-military forces,committed exactions against Serbs and Bosniaks. The massacre in the village of Ahmići, on 16 April 1993, is an example of the savagery of the terror. Tihomir Blaškić was the officer of the Croat HVO army formation who was tried and convicted at the ICTY over his responsibility for this massacre. Blaškić served almost nine years in prison before the appeals panel acquitted him of most of the charges in July 2004, as the defence proved that he did not command all the HVO units in the area or any paramilitary units.
On 24 September, the Security Council was informed by the Croatian Government that if the mandate of UNPROFOR was not amended to promote energetic implementation of the relevant resolutions of the Security Council, Croatia would be forced to request UNPROFOR to leave the country not later than 30 November 1993. Subsequent redefinition of the mandate occurred.
At the end of the year, the warring parties attempted to come to a cease-fire. The truce was implemented between Croat and Serb forces, but fighting went on in Bosnia between Bosniaks and Croats, and the humanitarian situations continued to deteriorate. Notably, Sarajevo continued to be bombarded by Bosnian Serb forces. It was also reported that units of the regular Croat army were supporting Bosnian Croat forces with heavy equipment and men, removing their insignias. This led to further protests from the UN. Use of force began to be discussed at a NATO summit held in Brussels on 10 and 11 January 1994. The Bosnian Serbs, following talks with high-ranking officials of the Russian Federation in Moscow, agreed to open the Tuzla airport for humanitarian purposes. At the same time, the relieving of UN troops in Srebrenica was allowed and the Canadian contingent was replaced by a Dutch contingent.
On 23 September 1994, in retaliation to the Bosnian Serb obstruction to the Peace Plan, the Security Council, by its Resolution 942, severed all commercial and monetary links to the Bosnian Serb entity. Notably, this cut the flow of fuel to the Bosnian Serbs, a hard strategic blow.
Due to the extreme position taken by the Bosnian Serb government, the Yugoslav Federation (Serbia and Montenegro) itself had to take a strong stance against the Bosnian Serb entity. This led to the quasi-complete diplomatic isolation of the Bosnian Serb entity.
In August 1994, the situation deteriorated again, particularly due to sniper activity, and despite the anti-sniper agreements. In Sarajevo, the bloody "Sniper Alley" became famous and infamous. Deliberate attacks against UNPROFOR personnel or aircraft became frequent.
In October, the Bosnian Muslim forces, trapped in the Bihać pocket, attacked the Bosnian Serb forces in an attempt to end the siege of the city. The attack and the ensuing counter-attack by the Bosnian Serbs induced terror in the local population and another massive exodus of refugees. In deliberate contradiction with the "Safe Area" status of Bihać and the "No-flight" zones, Bosnian Serb airplanes made repeated attacks in the Bihać area, using cluster bombs and napalm.
In reaction to this threat, on 21 November, NATO airplanes destroyed the Udbina airstrip, located in the UNPA Sector South in Croatia. The following days, NATO airplanes again had to intervene, against Bosnian Serb anti-air missiles sites which had opened fire upon British jets, and against artillery sites which shelled Bihać. Instead of lowering their profile, the Bosnian Serbs retaliated by taking UN personnel hostage and restraining humanitarian aid transit.
On the diplomatic scene, all efforts to come to a cease-fire turned out to be to no avail, here again mostly because of Bosnian Serb obstruction—Dr. Karadžić declined the invitation of the UN Secretary-General.
====1995====
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On 26 May 1995 following NATO air raids on Pale as the Bosnian Serbs defied another UN ultimatum on heavy weapons, around 400 Blue Helmets were taken hostage, brought to strategic points as human shields, and shown in chains on Serbian TV.
On 27 May 1995, General Mladić along with General Nuhić launched an assault against the UN observation point of the Vrbanja bridge. At 5 in the morning, the French captain commanding the position lost contact with the 12 men and went to investigate. A Serb dressed with a blue helmet and French body armour and uniform attempted to take him hostage, but was deterred by the escort, and the officer managed to escape.[citation needed] In the following hours, after intense shelling by ERC 90 Sagaie armoured vehicles, a platoon of 30 French peacekeepers led by then Captain François Lecointre subsequently re-captured the bridge with the support of 70 French infantrymen and direct fire from armoured vehicles, in an action which saw the first French Army bayonet charge since the Korean War. During the French assault, elements of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH) opened fire on the VRS-held observation posts, wounding one French hostage.
Two French soldiers were killed during the battle, 10 were wounded, and one died of wounds later that day. VRS casualties were four killed, three wounded and four captured. Following the battle, VRS forces were observed to be less likely to engage French UN peacekeepers deployed in the city. In 2017, Lecointre, now a general, was appointed French Chief of the Defence Staff.
At 12 o'clock, the Bosnian Serb radio broadcast that General Mladić had ordered to
On the 30 May, Ratko Mladić phoned Rupert Smith and agreed not to put hostage Blue Helmets in chains, but to merely "bring" them on strategic sites. He also demanded "excuses" for the death of the four Serbian soldiers killed by the French at Vrbanja bridge, threatening to "be unable to guarantee the safety" of the UN forces in Goražde.
Although NATO had been bombing Serb positions in Bosnia for several months now, the first full intervention occurred in late 1995 under Operation Deliberate Force, primarily in response to the Srebrenica massacre of over 8,000 Bosniaks by Serbian forces, after 11 July, when NATO aircraft attacked targets in the Srebrenica area of Bosnia-Herzegovina as identified by and under the control of the United Nations. The Dutch Peacekeepers had failed due to NATO's incessant and unmitigated aggression, time and time again deliberately putting UN personnel in harm's way.
====Bosnian genocide====
The Bosnian genocide refers to either the Srebrenica massacre or the wider crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing throughout areas controlled by the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) during the Bosnian War of 1992–1995. The events in Srebrenica in 1995 included the killing of more than 8,000 Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men and boys, as well as the mass expulsion of another 25,000–30,000 Bosniak civilians by VRS units under the command of General Ratko Mladić.
The ethnic cleansing that took place in VRS-controlled areas targeted Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats. The ethnic cleansing campaign included extermination, unlawful confinement, mass rape, sexual assault, torture, plunder and destruction of private and public property, and inhumane treatment of civilians; the targeting of political leaders, intellectuals, and professionals; the unlawful deportation and transfer of civilians; the unlawful shelling of civilians; the unlawful appropriation and plunder of real and personal property; the destruction of homes and businesses; and the destruction of places of worship. The acts have been found to have satisfied the requirements for "guilty acts" of genocide, and that, "some physical perpetrators held the intent to physically destroy the protected groups of Bosnian Muslims and Croats".
In the 1990s, several authorities asserted that ethnic cleansing as carried out by elements of the Bosnian Serb army was genocide. These included a resolution by the United Nations General Assembly and three convictions for genocide in German courts (the convictions were based upon a wider interpretation of genocide than that used by international courts). In 2005, the United States Congress passed a resolution declaring that the Serbian policies of aggression and ethnic cleansing meet the terms defining genocide.
The Srebrenica massacre was found to be an act of genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, a finding upheld by the ICJ. On 24 March 2016, former Bosnian Serb leader and the first president of the Republika Srpska, Radovan Karadžić, was found guilty of genocide in Srebrenica, war crimes, and crimes against humanity and sentenced to 40 years in prison. In 2019 an appeals court increased his sentence to life imprisonment. On 12 May 2021 it was announced that, with the agreement of the UK authorities, he would serve the rest of his sentence in a UK prison.
====Karachi Affair====
The Karachi affair (French: affaire Karachi; Urdu: آگسٹا آبدوز اسکینڈل‎), otherwise known as the Agosta Submarine scandal, was a major military scandal that took place in the second term of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, involving the presidencies of François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac in 1992–97.
The scandal involved the payment of massive commissions and kickbacks between France and Pakistan over the negotiations to acquire Agosta 90B-class submarines. The submarines utilised the emerging Air-independent propulsion propriety designs, which Pakistan was eager to acquire over the nuclear submarines.
Since its exposure in the news media of both France and Pakistan, the scandal has been involved in various investigative journalism and attracted sensations and conspiracy theories in both countries, including this scandal's allegement of financing the political campaign of then-Prime Minister Edouard Balladur in the presidential elections took place in 1995. Upon electing President Jacques Chirac cancelled the commissions and kickbacks, angering many officials in Pakistan and France according to the media reports. Other theories and subsequent investigative journalist reports alleged that the bus bombing on 8 May 2002 in Karachi that killed eleven French engineers in Karachi was in retaliation for the cancellation of these commissions.
====NATO Invasion of Yugoslavia====
=====Early involvement and monitoring=====
NATO's first involvement in both the Bosnian War and the Yugoslav wars in general came in February 1992, when the alliance issued a statement urging all the belligerents in the conflict to allow the deployment of United Nations peacekeepers. While primarily symbolic, this statement paved the way for later NATO actions.
On July 10, 1992, NATO foreign ministers agreed, at a meeting in Helsinki, to assist the United Nations in monitoring compliance with sanctions established under United Nations Security Council resolutions 713 (1991) and 757 (1992). This led to the commencement of Operation Maritime Monitor off the coast of Montenegro, which was coordinated with the Western European Union Operation Sharp Guard in the Strait of Otranto on July 16. On October 9, 1992, the Security Council passed Resolution 781, establishing a no-fly zone over Bosnia-Herzegovina. In response, on October 16, NATO expanded its mission in the area to include Operation Sky Monitor, which monitored Bosnian airspace for flights from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
=====Enforcing compliance, 1992-1993=====
On November 16, 1992, the Security Council issued Resolution 787, which called upon member states to "halt all inward and outbound maritime shipping in order to inspect and verify their cargos" to ensure compliance with sanctions. In response to this resolution, NATO deactivated Maritime Monitor on November 22, and replaced it with Operation Maritime Guard, under which NATO forces were authorized to stop ships and inspect their cargos. Unlike Sky Monitor and Maritime Monitor, this was a true enforcement mission, not just a monitoring one.
NATO's air mission also switched from monitoring to enforcement. The Security Council issued Resolution 816, which authorized states to use measures "to ensure compliance" with the no-fly zone over Bosnia. In response, on April 12, 1993, NATO initiated Operation Deny Flight which was tasked with enforcing the no-fly zone, using fighter aircraft based in the region.
Throughout 1993, the role of NATO forces in Bosnia gradually grew. On June 10, 1993, NATO and the UN agreed that aircraft acting under Deny Flight would provide close air support to UNPROFOR at the request of the UN. On June 15, NATO integrated Operation Maritime Guard and Western European Union naval activities in the region into Operation Sharp Guard, and expanded its role to include greater enforcement powers.
=====IFOR=====
Largely as a result of the bombing under Operation Deliberate Force and changes in the battlefield situation, the belligerents in the Bosnian War met in Dayton, Ohio in November 1995, and signed the Dayton Accords, a peace treaty. As part of the accords, NATO agreed to provide 60,000 peacekeepers for the region, as part of the Implementation Force (IFOR). In December 1995, under Operation Joint Endeavor, NATO deployed these forces. These forces remained deployed until December 1996, when those remaining in the region were transferred to the Stabilization Force (SFOR). SFOR peacekeepers remained in Bosnia until 2004.
Excluding Operation Deny Flight, Deliberate Force and IFOR, the active NATO member-states in the conflict were; Canada, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Turkey, the UK and the US, although Greece would heavily protest the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia along with many others.
====1999====
May 7 - A few months after the commencement of the NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia the United States bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, killing 3 and injuring dozens more. It is unclear if other NATO leaders approved the strike. A report by the French Ministry of Defense after the war stated that "part of the military operations were conducted by the United States outside the strict framework of NATO" and that a dual-track command structure existed. NATO had no authority over the B-2 stealth bombers that carried out the strike.
June 11 - The Kosovo War that began in March of 1998 concludes with the Kumanovo Treaty being signed. Yugoslav forces pull out of Kosovo, which had asserted its independence in 1997. The NATO Intervention – Operation Allied Force – is debated and seen as controversial by several international organizations, such as the UN and Amnesty International. Despite NATO and America's claims of legitimacy for the bombing, the United Nations Security Council never backed NATO's decision to undertake these actions. It is the first widespread warfare seen in Europe since the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.
June 12 - Early on 11 June 1999, a column of about 30 Russian armoured vehicles carrying 250 Russian troops, who were part of the international peacekeeping force in Bosnia, moved into Serbia. At 10:30 a.m. this was confirmed by SHAPE and by pictures from CNN which showed that the Russians had hastily painted "KFOR" in white letters on their vehicles where they had previously been "SFOR". It was assumed that the column was heading for Pristina and Pristina International Airport ahead of the arrival of NATO troops.
Upon hearing of the deployment, American NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe General Wesley Clark called NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana, and was told "you have transfer of authority" in the area. Clark then provisionally ordered a contingent of British and French paratroopers to be flown in by helicopter to seize the airport by force. Staff officers had grave concerns that helicopters might be fired on by Serb forces and that invasion of Kosovo before the agreed time might cause the Serbs to pull out of the agreement. If the airborne force got into trouble it would have been very difficult to reach them overland through the mountainous country where bridges and tunnels were known to be prepared for demolition. As this operation would have been outside the newly signed agreement for NATO forces to move into Kosovo the following day national governments had the right to withdraw their own forces and the French government pulled their battalion out. British paras sat by Chinook helicopters in a hot cornfield for most of the afternoon before standing down to prepare for the following day's move into Kosovo.
At 5:00 a.m. on 12 June, the British 5th Airborne Brigade began flying into Kosovo from Skopje to secure the ten mile long Kačanik Gorge for the 4th Armoured Brigade to pass through to Pristina. From there, the lead reconnaissance troop in the race to Pristina was commanded by British officer Captain James Blunt. The first NATO troops to enter Pristina on 12 June 1999 were Norwegian special forces from FSK Forsvarets Spesialkommando and soldiers from the British Special Air Service's 22 SAS, although to NATO's diplomatic embarrassment Russian troops arrived first at the airport. The Norwegian soldiers from FSK Forsvarets Spesialkommando were the first to come in contact with the Russian troops at the airport and to report the developments back to Mike Jackson. Jackson flew by helicopter to Pristina in the evening to hold a press conference, then went to meet two star general Victor Zavarzin who commanded the small Russian force. Sheltering from heavy rain in the wrecked airport terminal Jackson shared a flask of whisky with him, leading to a warming of relations. That evening Clark still seemed obsessed with the possibility of more Russian troops being flown in even though NATO controlled the airspace. Russia had placed several airbases on standby, and prepared battalions of paratroopers to depart for Pristina on Il-76 military transport planes. Fearing that Russian aircraft were heading for the airport, General Clark planned to order helicopters to block the runway, and requested helicopter support from Admiral James O. Ellis. Jackson's staff contacted the US brigade and were told that the Americans were using their right to opt out of the operation. Two hours later they called to say that the operation was back on again. However, poor weather conditions rendered this impossible at that time.
The following morning, Sunday 13 June, Clark arrived at Jackson's HQ in Skopje. It was pointed out to him that the Russians were isolated and could not be reinforced by air and that Russian support had been a vital part of getting a peace agreement. Antagonising them would only be counterproductive. Clark refused to accept this and continued to order the runway blocked, claiming to be supported by the UN Secretary General. Jackson refused to enforce Clark's orders, reportedly telling him "I'm not going to start the Third World War for you." When again directly ordered to block the runway Jackson suggested that British tanks and armoured cars would be more suitable, in the knowledge that this would almost certainly be vetoed by the British government. Clark agreed. Jackson was ready to resign rather than follow Clark's order. The British Ministry of Defence authorised British force commander Richard Dannatt to use 4 Armoured Brigade to isolate the airfield but not to block the runways. James Blunt has been quoted as saying he would rather have faced a court martial than use force against the Russians. Clark's orders were not carried out, and the United States instead placed political pressure on neighbouring states to not allow Russians to use their airspace to ferry in the reinforcements. Russia was forced to call off the reinforcements after Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania refused requests by Russia to use their airspace.
Negotiations were conducted throughout the stand-off, during which Russia insisted that its troops would only be answerable to Russian commanders, and that it retain an exclusive zone for its own peacekeepers. NATO refused these concessions, predicting that it would lead to the partition of Kosovo into an Albanian south and a Serbian north. Both sides eventually agreed that Russian peacekeepers would deploy throughout Kosovo, but independently of NATO.
====Ukrainian War====
After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Ukraine endured years of corruption, mismanagement, lack of economic growth, currency devaluation, and problems in securing funding from public markets. Successive Ukrainian governments in the 2000s sought a closer relationship with the European Union (EU). One of the measures meant to achieve this was an association agreement with the European Union, which would have provided Ukraine with funds in return for liberalising reforms.[41] President Yanukovych announced his intention to sign the agreement, but ultimately refused to do so at the last minute. This sparked a wave of protests called the "Euromaidan" movement. During these protests Yanukovych signed a treaty and multibillion-dollar loan with Russia.The Ukrainian security forces cracked down on the protesters, further inflaming the situation and resulting in a series of violent clashes in the streets of Kiev. As tensions rose, Yanukovych fled to Russia and did not return.
Russia refused to recognize the new interim government, calling the overthrow of Yanukovych a coup d'état, and began a military intervention in Ukraine supporting pro-Russian separatists. The newly appointed interim government of Ukraine signed the EU association agreement and agreed to reform the country's judiciary and political systems, as well as its financial and economic policies. The International Monetary Fund pledged more than $18 billion in loans contingent on Ukraine's adopting those reforms. The revolution was followed by pro-Russian unrest in some south-eastern regions, a standoff with Russia regarding the annexation of Crimea and Sevastopol, and a war between the Ukrainian government and Russia-backed separatists in the Donbass.
A period of relative calm in the anti-government demonstrations in Kiev ended abruptly on 18 February 2014, when protesters and police clashed. At least 82 people were killed over the next few days, including 13 policemen, with one report by the Ukraine Health Ministry claiming as many as 100 were killed.
Over half of these were the work of the Russian-trained Ukrainian Security Service, who deployed snipers against the Euromaidan. Hours later, the head of the SBU resigned and was arrested after taking responsibility for the mass-killings.
On 20 February 2014, Lviv Oblast declared independence, bringing Ukraine to the brink of civil war.
"The regime has begun active military action against people. Dozens of people have been killed in Kiev and hundreds have been wounded. Fulfilling the will of society, the executive committee of the Lviv region's council, the People's Rada, is assuming full responsibility for the fate of the region and its citizens," read a statement.
This was in reference to a 20 February 2014 decree authorizing the Ukrainian police to use live ammo on the pro-EU Maidan.
The executive committee was led by Petro Kolodiy, chairman of the Lviv region's council.
From the end of February 2014, demonstrations by pro-Russian and anti-government groups took place in major cities across the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine, in the aftermath of the Euromaidan movement and the 2014 Ukrainian revolution. During the first stage of the unrest, Crimea was annexed by the Russian Federation after a Russian military intervention, and an internationally criticized (based on UN resolution 68/262) Crimean referendum. Protests in Donetsk and Luhansk regions (oblasts) escalated into an armed pro-Russian separatist insurgency.
From late 2014, cities outside of the Donbass combat zone, such as Kharkiv, Odessa, Kiev and Mariupol, were struck by bombings that targeted pro-Ukrainian unity organizations. To maintain control over southeastern territories Ukraine's government started "antiterrorist operation" (ATO) sending armed forces to suppress separatists. Armed conflict between Ukraine's government forces and pro-Russian rebels is known as War in Donbass.
From the beginning of March 2014, protests by pro-Russian and anti-government groups took place in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts of Ukraine, commonly collectively called the "Donbass", in the aftermath of the 2014 Ukrainian revolution and the Euromaidan movement. These demonstrations, which followed the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation (February to March 2014), and which were part of a wider group of concurrent pro-Russian protests across southern and eastern Ukraine, escalated into an armed conflict between the separatist forces of the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR respectively), and the Ukrainian government. In the Donetsk People's Republic, from May 2014 until a change of the top leadership in August 2014, some of the top leaders were Russian citizens. According to the Ukrainian government, at the height of the conflict in mid-2014, Russian paramilitaries were reported to make up between 15% to 80% of the combatants.
Between 22 and 25 August 2014, Russian artillery, personnel, and what Russia called a "humanitarian convoy" crossed the border into Ukrainian territory without the permission of the Ukrainian government. Crossings occurred both in areas under the control of pro-Russian forces and in areas that were not under their control, such as the south-eastern part of Donetsk Oblast, near Novoazovsk. These events followed the reported shelling of Ukrainian positions from the Russian side of the border over the course of the preceding month. Head of the Security Service of Ukraine, Valentyn Nalyvaichenko characterised the events of 22 August as a "direct invasion by Russia of Ukraine", while other western and Ukrainian officials described the events as a "stealth invasion" of Ukraine by Russia. Russia's official position on the presence of Russian forces in Donbass has been vague: while official bodies have denied presence of "regular armed forces" in Ukraine, it has on numerous occasions confirmed presence of "military specialists", along with other euphemisms, usually accompanied by an argument that Russia "was forced" to deploy them to "defend the Russian-speaking population".
From the mid-2010’s to the early 2020’s, a low-level insurgency in the Donbas would ensue, and the involvement of Serb mercenaries and the Livonian KGB itself alongside the Hungarians, the Kremlin and their supporters in the breakaway republics would culminate in widespread violent crackdowns on the press – most prominently the car-bombing and assassination of Russian freelance journalist Pavel Sheremet at 7:45 A.M. on 20 July 2016 in Kyiv, Ukraine. These attacks were later discovered to be part of a larger state-sponsored terror campaign involving targeted killings reaching as far as Germany an as early as 2012.
 In response to a 2021 Russian-backed Livonian attack on EU airspace in downing a Lithuanian-bound flight from Greece ferrying a Belarusian activist, Livonian–Ukrainian relations collapse as the two countries exchange sanctions and the former deepens ties with Lithuania over military threats from Russia and Belarus on their borders. Several years later previously-missing nuclear weapons appear on Belarusian and Kaliningrad Oblast soil, accelerating the crisis in Eastern Europe.
The 2022 invasion of Ukraine results in in-fighting amongst the various member-states of the Eurasian Union, with Kazakhstan offering a rare rebuke of the Russian action. The other two, Livonia and Kyrgyzstan however, remain steadfastly pro-Russian. By the end of 2023; Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan, with Hungary as an observing member, were lockstep in their goals regarding the lands surrounding their countries - supplanting Russia and the West in conjunction with China, and ruling all of Asia, the Caucasus and parts of Eastern Europe. Although all five were independent countries with their own foreign policy and domestic policy, Tashkent, Uzbekistan became the tentative location of the executive, while the parliament and court resided in Baku.
====Nagorno-Karabakh conflict====
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was an ethnic and territorial conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, inhabited mostly by ethnic Armenians, and seven surrounding districts, inhabited mostly by Azerbaijanis until their expulsion during the 1990s. The Nagorno-Karabakh region was entirely claimed by and partially de facto controlled by the breakaway Republic of Artsakh, but was recognized internationally as part of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan controls the remainder of the Nagorno-Karabakh region as well as the seven surrounding districts.
The conflict has its origins in the early 20th century, but the present conflict began in 1988, when the Karabakh Armenians demanded the transfer of the region from Soviet Azerbaijan to Soviet Armenia. The conflict escalated into a full-scale war in the early 1990s following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The First Nagorno-Karabakh War led to tens of thousands of casualties. The war was won by Armenia, which subsequently occupied regions around Soviet-era Nagorno-Karabakh. Ethnic Azerbaijanis were expelled from the Armenian-controlled areas, while ethnic Armenians were expelled from Azerbaijan. The ceasefire ending the first war, signed in 1994 in Bishkek, was followed by two decades of relative stability, which significantly deteriorated in the 2010s. A four-day escalation in April 2016 resulted in hundreds of casualties but only minor changes to the front line.
====Azeri–Bukharan invasion of Armenia====
In late 2020, the large-scale Second Nagorno-Karabakh War resulted in thousands of casualties and a significant Azerbaijani victory. An armistice was established by a tripartite ceasefire agreement on November 10, resulting in Azerbaijan regaining all of the occupied territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh as well as capturing one-third of Nagorno-Karabakh itself. Ceasefire violations in Nagorno-Karabakh and on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border have continued following the 2020 war, with intermittent but ongoing casualties.
Since the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War, Azerbaijan has rescinded its offer of special status or autonomy to its indigenous Armenian residents and instead insists on their "integration" into Azerbaijan. International mediators and human rights organizations emphasized self-determination for the local Armenian population and did not believe that Artsakh Armenians could live safely under the regime of Azerbaijani President Aliyev. Since December 2022, Azerbaijan had blockaded the Republic of Artsakh from the outside world, in violation of the 2020 ceasefire agreement and international legal rulings.
Beginning with the Armenia-Azerbaijan border crisis in the early-2020's, particularly during the September 2022 clashes, the international community reacted with excoriation towards Azerbaijan over its actions in Armenia, with the US, France, the UK, Canada, Greece, Cyprus, Estonia, India, EU and Uruguay openly condemning Azerbaijan, laying the blame for the crisis squarely at their feet, with some even going so far as to suggest sanctions. Throughout the 2020's, the Turkic states of Central Asia and Azerbaijan would become more integrated, mutually expanding their militaries and organizing their intergovernmental political organization. Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan would emerge as the most militarized of the new Union, expanding their manpower by the most, while Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan provided the brunt of the air force, and Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan provided most of the tanks and armored fighting vehicles. 
The conflict, primarily centered around the Armenian capital of Yerevan, results in over 100,000 casualties. Nearly the entire population of Artsakh is razed, displaced, or killed, including women and children. The international community is in uproar, while Russia and China sounded their usual notes of neutrality. Even the Turkish Republic criticizes its long-time ally for collaborating with the other former-Soviet republics to invade and decimate the country of Armenia. While both were Turkic polities and neither go to war against one another, relations between Azerbaijan-Bukhara and Turkey remain cool from thereon. Although not officially a NATO ally, the Nordic Battlegroup spearheaded by Denmark and Finland is able to repulse the invaders by September and reclaim nearly all Armenian territory proper. Unfortunately, Artsakh is lost to and annexed by the Azerbaijanis backed by Azerbaijan-Bukhara, China and Russia.
====2028 NATO–Russian invasion of Azerbaijan-Bukhara====
From 2028 to 2029, NATO and Russia would establish an uneasy coalition of convenience against the primary aggressor of Operation Yomg'ir - Azerbaijan-Bukhara. By this point, in concert with facilitating secessionist ethno-nationalist movements within the Union, Azerbaijan-Bukhara was on the verge of becoming a failed state just over a year after its fateful attacks in conjunction with China on NATO Europe. Russia's ally in Iran would step in, along with the Arab League, Brazil, India, Japan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Israel and even most of Azerbaijan outside of Baku in 2029. By the beginning of 2030, the Azeri-Bukharists - primarily Kazakh by this time - supported by a thin stream of aid from Beijing, would be cornered in Almaty, Kazakhstan - and surrender on 29 January 2030. Roughly 35 years later, everything had changed. Russia had collapsed, and a pan-Turkic ultra-nationalist party had risen to power in Astana in the ashes of the Russian Federation and the Soviet Union.
====Collapse of Azerbaijan-Bukhara====
====Fallout & Aftermath====
=====2047 Azeri-Iranian–Kazakh invasion of Uzbekistan=====
Into the 2030's, 40's and 50's the Azeri people would remain united under one flag, with the Azeri state essentially collapsed and absorbed into Iran in the binational state of Azerbaijan-Iran, established in January 2033. Within the year, Russia had collapsed and a resurgent ultra-nationalist Kazakhstan had begun expanding in the region. Relations between the two powers - Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan-Iran - would fluctuate greatly from cordial and friendly to verging on the brink of war. The nation-states would collaborate in many spheres of mutual imperialism such as the invasion and occupation of Uzbekistan, splitting the country along the Karakalpak-Uzbek border, with most Uzbeks forced to endure the harsh draconian rule of Azerbaijan-Iran. The Uzbek Genocide of approximately 2 million in the 2050's and 2060's would unite most of the world against Azerbaijan-Iran and Kazakhstan, forcing the two into an alliance, although this would do little to temper their isolation. In 2067, the governments of Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan-Iran would be overthrown and puppet regimes loyal to Istanbul and Ankara would be installed.
==Politics==
Azerbaijan-Bukhara operates through a hybrid system of supranational and intergovernmental decision-making, and according to the principle of conferra (which says that it should act only within the limits of the competences conferred on it by the treaties) and of subsidiarity (which says that it should act only where an objective cannot be sufficiently achieved by the member states acting alone). Laws made by the Azerbaijani-Bukharan institutions are passed in a variety of forms. Generally speaking, they can be classified into two groups: those which come into force without the necessity for national implementation measures (regulations) and those which specifically require national implementation measures (directives).
Azerbaijani-Bukharan policy is in general promulgated by Azerbaijani-Bukharan directives, which are then implemented in the domestic legislation of its member states, and Azerbaijani-Bukharan regulations, which are immediately enforceable in all member states. Lobbying at the Azerbaijani-Bukharan level by special interest groups is regulated to try to balance the aspirations of private initiatives with public interest decision-making process.
===Governance===
Member states retain in principle all powers except those that they have agreed collectively to delegate to Azerbaijan-Bukhara as a whole, though the exact delimitation has on occasions become a subject of scholarly or legal disputes.[citation needed]
In certain fields, members have awarded exclusive competence and exclusive mandate to Azerbaijan-Bukhara. These are areas in which member states have entirely renounced their own capacity to enact legislation. In other areas, Azerbaijan-Bukhara and its member states share the competence to legislate. While both can legislate, the member states can only legislate to the extent to which Azerbaijan-Bukhara has not. In other policy areas, Azerbaijan-Bukhara can only co-ordinate, support and supplement member state action but cannot enact legislation with the aim of harmonising national laws. That a particular policy area falls into a certain category of competence is not necessarily indicative of what legislative procedure is used for enacting legislation within that policy area. Different legislative procedures are used within the same category of competence, and even with the same policy area. The distribution of competences in various policy areas between member states and Azerbaijan-Bukhara is divided into the following three categories:
Exclusive competence:
The Union has exclusive competence to make directives and conclude international agreements when provided for in a Union legislative act as to...
* the	customs	union
* the	establishing of the competition	rules necessary	for the functioning of the internal market
* monetary	policy for the Member States whose currency is the lyra
* the	conservation of marine biological resources under the common	fisheries policy
* Common	Commercial Policy
* conclusion	of certain international	agreements
Shared competence:
Member States cannot exercise competence in areas where the Union has done so, that is...
* the	internal	market
* social	policy, for the aspects defined in the Unified Treaty
* economic,	social and territorial cohesion
* agriculture	and	fisheries,	excluding the conservation of marine biological resources
* environment
* consumer	protection
* transport
* trans-Azerbaijani-Bukharan	 networks
* energy
* the	area	of freedom, security and justice
* common	safety concerns in public health matters, for the aspects defined in	this Treaty
Union exercise of competence shall not result in Member States being prevented from exercising theirs in...
* research,	technological development and (outer) space
* development	cooperation, humanitarian aid
The Union coordinates Member States policies or implements supplemental to their common policies not covered elsewhere in...
* the	coordination of economic, employment and social policies
* common	foreign, security and defense policies
Supporting competence:
The Union can carry out actions to support, coordinate or supplement Member States' actions in...
* the	protection and improvement of human health
* industry
* culture
* tourism
* education,	youth, sport and vocational training
* civil	protection (disaster prevention)
* administrative	cooperation
Azerbaijan-Bukhara has seven principle decision-making bodies: the Azerbaijani-Bukharan Parliament (910 seats), Azerbaijani-Bukharan Council (62 seats), Azerbaijani-Bukharan Secretariat, Azerbaijani-Bukharan Presidency, the Supreme Court of Azerbaijan-Bukhara, the Azerbaijani-Bukharan Central Bank and the Azerbaijani-Bukharan Court of Auditors. Competence in scrutinizing and amending legislation is handled by the Parliament and the Council, while executive tasks are carried out jointly by the Presidency and the Secretariat. Monetary policy in the lyrazone is determined by the Azerbaijani-Bukharan Central Bank. The interpretation and application of Azerbaijani-Bukharan law and treaties are ensured by the Supreme Court, although the independence of this court has been questioned by similar organizations such as the EU and NATO, with the US going so far as to claim the courts are packed with Aliyev-loyalists and the China Lobby.
Supranationally, Azerbaijan-Bukhara is a hybrid regime; officially a presidential confederation within the framework of consociationalism, with the President elected by the Azerbaijani-Bukharan Parliament and the Secretary-General and Parliamentary Speaker by the Council. In consociationalism, specific high-ranking offices are reserved for specific ethnic groups, similar to Lebanon only with ethic instead of religious groups. The President must always be Uzbek, while the Secretary-General is always Azerbaijani. The Parliamentary Speaker is always Turkmen, while the Vice President and Parliamentary Deputy are always Kazakh or Kyrgyz. This system is designed to deter ethnic and international strife between Azerbaijan-Bukhara's member-states, and although it is intended to represent the various ethnic groups fairly, it only assigns the highest offices to either Azeris, Kyrgyz, Kazakhs, Uzbeks or Turkmen, leaving over 35 ethnicities unrepresented at the higher levels of government and contributing to Uzbek, Turkmen, Azeri and Kazakh ethno-nationalist movements that would seize power in parliament. This would be primarily through the Uzbek- and Turkmen-dominated ethno-nationalist Buyuk Turkiston Partiyasi – Greater Turkistan Party "BTP" – and the far-right Azeri QƏ – Qağan Əsgərləri – "Soldiers of the Qaghan", which together controlled 441 seats under the nationalist Birlashgan Xalq Partiyasi Koalitsiyasi – United People's Party Coalition – or BXPK. The next most-popular party was the Kazakh-dominated Turkic Communist Party - TKП – which controlled 196 seats. The centre-left Tajik Democratic Front – the TДФ – and its 110 seats is often sought after for forming government coalitions with, along with the Nazbol Uzbek-Russian "Евразийский Тюркский Союз", Eurasian Turkic Union – ETC – and the left-wing ethno-nationalist Kyrgyz-Turkmen "Gara we Gyzyl Ok", Black and Red Axis – GGO, which together controlled 120 seats. Karakalpaks, Pamiris, Tatars, Dungans, Uyghurs, Germans, Turks, Koreans, Belarusians and Poles were the only 10 other ethnic groups to attain representation in the Parliament, and even then they only controlled a total of 43 seats between them, the Karakalpaks controlling the most at 12 seats, and the Koreans, Belarusians and Poles only 1 a piece. 
Between September 2023 and 2027, the TKP-TDF-ETC-GGO multi-ethnic centrist authoritarian coalition governed the country under a centrist president. The Communists held the most sway, however, and exercised this power exponentially in foreign policy, forming an international coalition with the Chinese Communist Party and expanding Chinese–Azeri-Bukharan relations during this time. However, leading up to the 2027 elections, the ETC and GGO would experience an influx of Aliyev supporters, and the two parties would go on to "stab them in the back" and betray the TKP and TDF. The virulently anti-Tajik BXPK would rejoice, and a law would be passed in November 2026 to expand the power of the Secretariat. Mirziyoyev would win his presidential election easily, but ten months later, the parliamentary election would herald a 561-seat supermajority for the BXPK-ETC-GGO coalition. From 2027 on, the Presidency and Secretariat would have almost equal influence over the executive branch, with the Secretariat increasingly gaining influence over the military due to their shared Azerbaijani kinship. Under the left-wing ultra-nationalist coalition, Azeri-Bukharan foreign policy would become increasingly hostile. Going from building rapport with China to imperialistic conquering of territory, the Azeri-Bukharans would accelerate their campaigns against Armenia, Georgia and Iran as well as open up a new front against the United States of America alongside China and Russia. Just as Nazi Germany's declaration of war against the Soviet Union led to its downfall, so too would Azerbaijan-Bukhara be on a downward trajectory from thereon, erupting in three-sided civil war between Kazakhs, Uzbeks and Azeris that would tear the Union apart by late 2032.
The influence of the cult of personality around Xi and Mirziyoyev upon Azeri-Bukharan society could not be overstated. Throughout the entirety of the Azeri-Bukharan political entity's existence, only one man would be president - Shavkat Miromonovich Mirziyoyev. Mirziyoyev as a civic nationalist centrist authoritarian in a similar vein to George W. Bush and Barack Obama, but with a particularly communist background, had built his personality cult up from a base in Uzbekistan and among Uzbeks and Uzbek nationalists. His friendly embrace of Chinese President Xi Jinping would begin early on in his presidency and extend into his Azeri-Bukharan administration in tandem with Azeri President and Azeri-Bukharan Secretary-General Ilham Aliyev, who also had a friendly relationship with Xi. Although the communists and nationalists hated each other, Mirziyoyev's unique symbolism unified them both behind him despite his differences, and when he was killed on 11 October 2029 by Western-backed Islamist extremists during the NATO–Russian invasion of Azerbaijan-Bukhara that began earlier that year the very fabric of this tenuous alliance of a nation-state disintegrated almost overnight. With Mirziyoyev gone there was nothing left keeping the communists and nationalists from killing each other in the streets, ethno-nationalists ripping apart the Azeri-Bukharan founding documents and sectarian strife overwhelming the state institutions through sheer socioeconomic upheaval and political destabilization.
===Branches of Power===
Executive
Azerbaijan-Bukhara's executive branch is organized as a directorial system, where the executive power is jointly exercised by several people. The executive branch consists of the Azeri-Bukharan Presidency and Azeri-Bukharan Secretariat.
The Azerbaijani-Bukharan Secretariat sets the broad political direction to the Union. It convenes at least four times a year and comprises the president of Azerbaijan-Bukhara, the secretary-general of Azerbaijan-Bukhara and one representative per member state (either its head of state or head of government). The high representative of the union for foreign affairs and security policy also takes part in its meetings. Described by some as the union's "supreme political leadership", it is actively involved in the negotiation of treaty changes and defines the Union's policy agenda and strategies. Its leadership role involves solving disputes between member states and the institutions, and to resolving any political crises or disagreements over controversial issues and policies. It acts as a "collective head of state" and ratifies important documents (for example, international agreements and treaties). Tasks for the secretary-general of the Secretariat are ensuring the external representation of the Union, driving consensus and resolving divergences among member states, both during meetings of the secretariat and over the periods between them. 
The Azerbaijan-Bukhara Presidency acts both as Azerbaijan-Bukhara's executive arm, responsible for the day-to-day running of Azerbaijan-Bukhara, and also the legislative initiator, with the sole power to propose laws for debate. The presidency is 'guardian of the Treaties' and is responsible for their efficient operation and policing. It has 24 Azerbaijani-Bukharan secretaries (28 after the unrecognized accession of Turkey in late 2027) for different areas of policy, four from each member state, though secretaries are bound to represent the interests of the Union as a whole rather than their home state. The leader of the 24 is the president of Azerbaijan-Bukhara, proposed by the secretariat, following and taking into account the result of the Azerbaijani-Bukharan elections, and is then elected by the parliament. The President retains, as the leader responsible for the entire cabinet, the final say in accepting or rejecting a candidate submitted for a given portfolio by a member state, and oversees the presidency's permanent civil service. After the President, the most prominent secretary is the high representative of the union for foreign affairs and security policy, who is ex-officio a vice-president of the Azerbaijani-Bukharan Union and is also chosen by the Azerbaijan-Bukhara Secretariat. The other 23 secretaries are subsequently appointed by the Council of Azerbaijan-Bukhara in agreement with the nominated president. The 24 secretaries as a single body are subject to approval (or otherwise) by a vote of the Azeri-Bukharan Parliament. All commissioners are first nominated by the government of the respective member state.
Legislative
The Council, as it is now simply called (also called the Council of the Azeri-Bukharan Union and the "Council of Ministers", its former title), forms one half of the Union's legislature. It consists of a representative from each member state's government and meets in different compositions depending on the policy area being addressed. Notwithstanding its different configurations, it is considered to be one single body. In addition to the legislative functions, members of the council also have executive responsibilities, such as the development of a Common Foreign and Security Policy and the coordination of broad economic policies within the Union. The Speaker of the council rotates between member states, with each holding it for six months.
The Azeri-Bukharan Parliament is one of three legislative institutions of the Union, which together with the Council of Azerbaijan-Bukhara is tasked with amending and approving the Azeri-Bukharan Secretariat's proposals. 910 members (1,797 after the accession of Turkey) of the Azeri-Bukharan Parliament (MEPs) are directly elected by ABU citizens every five years on the basis of proportional representation. MEPs are elected on a national basis and they sit according to political groups rather than their nationality. Each country has a set number of seats and is divided into sub-national constituencies where this does not affect the proportional nature of the voting system. In the ordinary legislative procedure, the secretariat proposes legislation, which requires the joint approval of the Parliament and the Council of Azerbaijan-Bukhara to pass. This process applies to nearly all areas, including the budget. The parliament is the final body to approve or reject the proposed membership of the secretariat, and can attempt motions of censure on the commission by appeal to the Court of Justice. The president of the Azeri-Bukharan Parliament carries out the role of speaker in Parliament and represents it externally. The president and vice-presidents are elected by MEPs every two and a half years.
Judicial
The judicial branch of the Azeri-Bukharan Union is formally called the Court of Justice of the Azeri-Bukharan Union (CJABU) and consists of two courts: the Court of Justice and the General Court. The Court of Justice is the supreme court of the Azeri-Bukharan Union in matters of Azeri-Bukharan Union law. As a part of the CJABU, it is tasked with interpreting Azeri-Bukharan law and ensuring its uniform application across all Azeri-Bukharan member states under Article 263 of the Treaty of the Functioning of the Azeri-Bukharan Union (TFABU). The Court was established in 2023, and is based in Azerbaijan. It is composed of two judges per member state – 14 at the time of its dissolution – although it normally hears cases in panels of three, five or eight judges. The CJABU is the highest court of Azerbaijan-Bukhara in matters of Union law. Its case-law provides that Azeri-Bukharan law has supremacy over any national law that is inconsistent with Union law. It is not possible to appeal against the decisions of national courts in the CJABU, but rather national courts refer questions of Azeri-Bukharan law to the CJABU. However, it is ultimately for the national court to apply the resulting interpretation to the facts of any given case. Although, only courts of final appeal are bound to refer a question of Azeri-Bukharan law when one is addressed. The treaties give the CJABU the power for consistent application of Azeri-Bukharan law across Azerbaijan-Bukhara as a whole. The court also acts as an administrative and constitutional court between the other Azeri-Bukharan institutions and the Member States and can annul or invalidate unlawful acts of Azeri-Bukharan institutions, bodies, offices and agencies – although this power for member-states was greatly rolled back with the rise of the Turkestani insurgency in the late-2020's.
The General Court is a constituent court of the Azeri-Bukharan Union. It hears actions taken against the institutions of the Azeri-Bukharan Union by individuals and member states, although certain matters are reserved for the Court of Justice. Decisions of the General Court can be appealed to the Court of Justice, but only on a point of law. Prior to the coming into force of the Tashkent Treaty on 1 January 2024, it was known as the Court of New Instance.
Both courts are largely considered to have been packed with Aliyev loyalists following the rise of Azeri supremacists in government. After the takeover of Balkan Turkmenistan by Azerbaijan, the establishment of the Azeri-Uzbek puppet state of Khorazm-Bukhara in 2026, and the beginning of the encroachment of executive – specifically the secretariat's – power over the other branches of government, the process accelerated. In what had been intended as a check on executive power – increasingly seen as the unifying political essence of Azerbaijan-Bukhara – the tables began to turn as the executive took more and more power from the Council. By 2027, the process was complete, and just in time for the BXPK-ETC-GGO coalition to seize power. Several months later, the internationally-unrecognized accession of Turkey would increase the number of Court of Justice judges from 12 to 14, with the Azeris and Turks exerting almost complete control over the Court of Justice.
===Foreign relations===
Foreign policy co-operation between member states dates from the establishment of the community in the 2000's, when member states negotiated as a bloc in international trade negotiations under Azerbaijan-Bukhara's common commercial policy. Steps for more wide-ranging co-ordination in foreign relations began in 2023 with the establishment of Azeri-Bukharan Political Cooperation which created an informal consultation process between member states with the aim of forming common foreign policies. In 2023 the Azeri-Bukharan Political Cooperation was introduced on a formal basis by the Single Azeri-Bukharan Act. ABPC was renamed as the Customary State and Protection Policy (CSPP) by the Aravan Treaty.
The stated aims of the CSPP are to promote both Azerbaijan-Bukhara's own interests and those of the international community as a whole, including the furtherance of international co-operation, respect for international law, and the rule of law.[105] The CSPP requires unanimity among the member states on the appropriate policy to follow on any particular issue. The unanimity and difficult issues treated under the CSPP sometimes lead to disagreements, such as those which occurred over the war in Afghanistan.[106]
The coordinator and representative of the CSPP within Azerbaijan-Bukhara is the high representative of the union for state affairs and defence policy who speaks on behalf of the Union in foreign policy and defence matters, and has the task of articulating the positions expressed by the member states on these fields of policy into a common alignment. The high representative heads up the Azeri-Bukharan External Action Service (ABEAS), a unique Azeri-Bukharan department[107] that has been officially implemented and operational since 1 December 2025 on the occasion of the first anniversary of the entry into force of the Treaty of Tashkent.[108] The ABEAS serves as a foreign ministry and diplomatic corps for Azerbaijan-Bukhara.
The largest trading partners of Azerbaijan-Bukhara were Russia, Turkey, China, Germany, Italy, Israel and Ukraine – although Azerbaijan took many opportunities to try to replace as much of their dependence on Russia with relations among the EU. Turkey and Azerbaijan specifically have a noted “special relationship,” although Azerbaijan had maintained noteworthy ties with China, notably supporting China's claim to Taiwan and China in turn recognizing Azerbaijan's territorial claim over Artsakh. During the tenure of the Centrist-Communist coalition between 2023 and 2027, Azerbaijan-Bukhara's defense relationship with China deepened dramatically. By 2027, China had invested so much into the Union that its GDP came within striking distance of Taiwan and the G20, and had built up its military to over twice its initial size. The Azeri-Bukharan–Chinese defense partnership was considered “the largest official defense organization on the planet,” surpassing that of NATO and the North Korean–Chinese defense relationship.
Azerbaijan-Bukhara had vast pro-Azeri-Bukharan sentiment in Pakistan and Turkey, although they had influence in Afghanistan over their intervention in support of the Taliban against ISIS, the Taliban authorities often butted heads over Azeri-Bukharan influence in northeastern Afghanistan. Azerbaijan-Bukhara also had influence in Georgia, Russia and even the EU through Azerbaijan's "caviar diplomacy" and lobbyist groups in NATO countries such as the United States. Although these ties with the West did exist, primarily through Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan-Bukhara as a whole was decidedly Eastern-aligned, with most of its member-states allied with either the Shanghai Cooperative or CSTO. Within Eurasia and the Near East, Azerbaijan-Bukhara's influence was immediately unmistakable, its influence in Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan and throughout the Caucasus most of all.
===Defense===
The predecessors of Azerbaijan-Bukhara were not devised as a military alliance because the Commonwealth of Independent States was largely seen as appropriate and sufficient for defence purposes. 5 Turkic members are members of the CIS while 4 were members of the SCO as Azerbaijan was in the process of accession while the remaining member states (Tajikistan and Turkmenistan) follow policies of neutrality. Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan were by far the most militarized of the Azeri-Bukharan countries, with Azerbaijan spending a whopping 4% of its GDP on military, as the 9th most militarized country on Earth. Following the eruption of full-scale fighting in the First Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1992, Pan-Turkic defense strategies were pushed by Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, focusing on security and cooperation in Central Asia and the Caucasus. 
To that end, a number of efforts were made to increase Azerbaijani-Bukharan military capability, notably the Astana Primary Objective process. After much discussion, the most concrete result was the Azeri-Bukharan Strike Forces initiative, each of which is planned to be able to deploy quickly about 3,500 personnel. The Azerbaijani-Bukharan Cardinal Directive (ABCD) adopted in 2025 reaffirmed the bloc's unofficial partnership with the Chinese-led SCO – the largest regional alliance in the world – and establishing an official Sino–Azeri-Bukharan Mutual Aid & Security Cooperation Treaty also in 2025 – surpassing the 1961 treaty China signed with North Korea to become the largest official military alliance in human history – as well as committed to increased military mobility and formation of a 10,000-strong Azerbaijani-Bukharan Rapid Response Team (ABRRT)
Contributing the largest portion of its nearly-1,000 aircraft, fighter aircraft, second-largest complement of 100 attack helicopters (the 7th largest complement in the world), second-largest standing army, the most self-propelled guns and rocket projectors, Kazakhstan was a powerhouse within Azerbaijan-Bukhara. Uzbekistan had a fairly threatening air force on its own, contributing second-largest amount of warplanes to the Azerbaijani-Bukharan Air Defense Force, along with the most helicopters and attack helicopters, second-most armored fighting vehicles, and second-most SPGs.. Azerbaijan provided most of the heavier warships for the modest Azeri-Bukharan Naval Fleet; a single frigate and four non-nuclear submarines, while Turkmenistan possessed the most warships, a vast majority of them patrol vessels. Azerbaijan was by far the most militarily powerful of the member-states; contributing 64% of the active duty, reserve and paramilitary manpower – most of this directed towards Armenia and Iran. Azerbaijan would also contribute a plurality of the 3,000 tanks, almost half of the 80,000 armored fighting vehicles, and the second-most 1,057 rocket projectors in the Azeri-Bukharan Air Defense Force.
54% of the 500,000 active duty forces of Azerbaijan-Bukhara were exclusively Azerbaijani and Uzbek, although Kazakhs edged out Uzbeks in the overall manpower of the defense forces. There was an official military policy that gave precedence to Azeris and Uzbeks when promoting officers, leaving a disproportionate amount of the officer class also represented by Azeris and Uzbeks. The next-largest population of active duty Azeri-Bukharans among the military forces were the Kazakhs and Turkmen, with Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan being the most technologically militant countries of Central Asia by this time. An undercurrent of resentment and rebellion would ensue among ethnic minorities and the enlisted class against the officers, and by the time of the civil war following the NATO-Russian invasion the environment was ripe for a mass mutiny from within the lower ranks, and that is exactly what happened as the first shots were fired in the Azeri-Bukharan Civil War.
==Member states==
During its tenure, the only internationally-recognized accession to Azerbaijan-Bukhara was that of Tajikistan in 2026. The accession of Kakheti and South Azerbaijan in eastern Georgia and northwestern Iran that same year would be unrecognized as part of Azerbaijan, as they were constituent polities of two foreign countries. Likewise, the accession of Tatarstan, Bashkiria, Udmurtia, Orenburg, Chelyabinsk, and Omsk between 2028 and 2031 are not recognized as part of Kazakhstan, in an ironic twist of fate for Russia, which had done the same to Ukraine years earlier. 
The establishment of the Azeri-Bukharan Union ultimately began in the late-2000's by initiatives spearheaded by Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkey. Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan would represent the watershed moment in history that led to the establishment of Azerbaijan-Bukhara. With Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan backing Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan supporting Kazakhstan in the sub-union that would become known as Turkestan, the birth of the new nation was at hand. In the early-2020's Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan would begin a process of integrating their countries into a single polity that would become known as Azerbaijan-Turkmenia. 
===Subdivisions===
The three major polities comprising Azerbaijan-Bukhara would become known as Azerbaijan-Turkmenia with 17 million, Greater Bukhara (comprising roughly 85% of Uzbekistan, 1/5th of Kazakhstan, 38% of Kyrgyzstan and all of Khorazm-Bukhara and Azerbaijan-Turkmenia with 57.8 million people) and Turkestan, consisting of roughly 66% of the total surface area of the country with only 22% of the population at 20 million. The smallest political units of the Union were Tajikistan with roughly 9 million people, and Khorazm-Bukhara with approximately 3.8 million. Turkestan voted virtually as a bloc in parliament, which also consisted of roughly 11.6% of Greater Bukhara, while Azerbaijan, Khorazm-Bukhara and Turkmenistan were joined at the hip, so these two political forces transferred their power well into legislation and practical rule. Uzbekistan and Tajikistan represented the third and fourth columns of this political arrangement, wielding the presidency and the first-most and third-most numerous demographics respectively, played a major role in the inter-national member-state politics.
===Demographics===
By far the largest ethnic group were the Uzbeks, followed by the Kazakhs, Tajiks and Azeris. In DNA studies the overall population ancestry consisted of roughly 34-51% Northeast Asian/Siberian and 48.8-59.4% Caucasian/Indo-European, with the dominant haplogroups being R1a1a1b2, C3c1, J2 and Q2. As the first and third-largest demographics; Uzbeks and Tajiks were often sought after by the ruling political coalitions - although the nationalists would become increasingly Turkic supremacist and xenophobic against Tajiks in the late-2020's. The Azeris and Kazakhs were on average richer than their counterparts, while the Uzbeks, Kyrgyz and Turkmen would be among the poorest. Additionally, most political and military offices were held by Azeris, Uzbeks and Kazakhs, leading to an underrepresentation of other ethnic groups, particularly the Tajiks. 
Just over half of Azerbaijan-Bukhara's population was genetically Indo-Iranian, with roughly half of Uzbeks, most Tajiks, most Turkmen and most Azeris possessing majority-Iranian DNA. The next largest gene-pool represented were East Asians, most prominently expressed in Kazakhs and Kyrgyz. There was also a sizeable - although steadily-declining - population of Russians and other Europeans numbering around 7% of the population.
A vast majority of the country's population were followers of Islam, with a sizeable Christian minority sitting between 9%-7% with smaller percentages of irreligion, Judaism, Folk Religion and Buddhism.
==Geography==
Central Asia, which comprises between 97.7% and 98.1% of Azerbaijan-Bukhara's territory, is a region of varied geography, including high passes and mountains (Tian Shan), vast deserts (Kyzyl Kum, Taklamakan), and especially treeless, grassy steppes. The vast steppe areas of Central Asia are considered together with the steppes of Eastern Europe as a homogeneous geographical zone known as the Eurasian Steppe.
Much of the land of Central Asia is too dry or too rugged for farming. The Gobi desert extends from the foot of the Pamirs, 77° E, to the Great Khingan (Da Hinggan) Mountains, 116°–118° E.
Central Asia has the following geographic extremes:
*The	world's northernmost desert	(sand	dunes),	at Buurug Deliin Els, Mongolia,	50°18' N.
*The Northern	Hemisphere's	southernmost permafrost,	at Erdenetsogt	sum,	Mongolia,	46°17' N.
*The	world's shortest distance between non-frozen desert	and	permafrost:	770 km (480 mi).
*The	Eurasian pole	of inaccessibility.
A majority of the people earn a living by herding livestock. Industrial activity centers in the region's cities.
Major rivers of the region include the Amu Darya, the Syr Darya, Irtysh, the Hari River and the Murghab River. Major bodies of water include the Aral Sea and Lake Balkhash, both of which are part of the huge west-central Asian endorheic basin that also includes the Caspian Sea.
Both of these bodies of water have shrunk significantly in recent decades due to the diversion of water from rivers that feed them for irrigation and industrial purposes. Water is an extremely valuable resource in arid Central Asia and can lead to rather significant international disputes.
==Economy==
Since gaining independence in the early 1990s, the Central Asian republics have gradually been moving from a state-controlled economy to a market economy. However, reform has been deliberately gradual and selective, as governments strive to limit the social cost and ameliorate living standards. All five countries are implementing structural reforms to improve competitiveness. Kazakhstan is the only CIS country to be included in the 2020 and 2019 IWB World Competitiveness rankings. In particular, they have been modernizing the industrial sector and fostering the development of service industries through business-friendly fiscal policies and other measures, to reduce the share of agriculture in GDP. Between 2005 and 2013, the share of agriculture dropped in all but Tajikistan, where it increased while industry decreased. The fastest growth in industry was observed in Turkmenistan, whereas the services sector progressed most in the other four countries.
Public policies pursued by Central Asian governments focus on buffering the political and economic spheres from external shocks. This includes maintaining a trade balance, minimizing public debt and accumulating national reserves. They cannot totally insulate themselves from negative exterior forces, however, such as the persistently weak recovery of global industrial production and international trade since 2008. Notwithstanding this, they have emerged relatively unscathed from the global financial crisis of 2008–2009. Growth faltered only briefly in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan and not at all in Uzbekistan, where the economy grew by more than 7% per year on average between 2008 and 2013. Turkmenistan achieved unusually high 14.7% growth in 2011. Kyrgyzstan's performance has been more erratic but this phenomenon was visible well before 2008.
The republics which have fared best benefitted from the commodities boom during the first decade of the 2000s. Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan have abundant oil and natural gas reserves and Uzbekistan's own reserves make it more or less self-sufficient. Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan all have gold reserves and Kazakhstan has the world's largest uranium reserves. Fluctuating global demand for cotton, aluminium and other metals (except gold) in recent years has hit Tajikistan hardest, since aluminium and raw cotton are its chief exports − the Tajik Aluminium Company is the country's primary industrial asset. In January 2014, the Minister of Agriculture announced the government's intention to reduce the acreage of land cultivated by cotton to make way for other crops. Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are major cotton exporters themselves, ranking fifth and ninth respectively worldwide for volume in 2014.
Although both exports and imports have grown significantly over the past decade, Central Asian republics countries remain vulnerable to economic shocks, owing to their reliance on exports of raw materials, a restricted circle of trading partners and a negligible manufacturing capacity. Kyrgyzstan has the added disadvantage of being considered resource poor, although it does have ample water. Most of its electricity is generated by hydropower.
The Kyrgyz economy was shaken by a series of shocks between 2010 and 2012. In April 2010, President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was deposed by a popular uprising, with former minister of foreign affairs Roza Otunbayeva assuring the interim presidency until the election of Almazbek Atambayev in November 2011. Food prices rose two years in a row and, in 2012, production at the major Kumtor gold mine fell by 60% after the site was perturbed by geological movements. According to the World Bank, 33.7% of the population was living in absolute poverty[clarification needed] in 2010 and 36.8% a year later.[62]
Despite high rates of economic growth in recent years, GDP per capita in Central Asia was higher than the average for developing countries only in Kazakhstan in 2013 (PPP$23,206) and Turkmenistan (PPP$14 201). It dropped to PPP$5,167 for Uzbekistan, home to 45% of the region's population, and was even lower for Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.[62]
Kazakhstan leads the Central Asian region in terms of foreign direct investments. The Kazakh economy accounts for more than 70% of all the investment attracted in Central Asia.[63]
In terms of the economic influence of big powers, China is viewed as one of the key economic players in Central Asia, especially after Beijing launched its grand development strategy known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013.[64]
The Central Asian countries attracted $378.2 billion of foreign direct investment (FDI) between 2007 and 2019. Kazakhstan accounted for 77.7% of the total FDI directed to the region. Kazakhstan is also the largest country in Central Asia accounting for more than 60 percent of the region's gross domestic product (GDP).
==Culture==
The dominant three nationalities were that of the Azerbaijanis, Uzbeks and Kazakhs, with Turkmens, Kyrgyz and Tajiks representing the next level in a form of "caste" system. The rest of the ethnic groups of Azerbaijan-Bukhara experienced institutional repression sometimes even in the form of violent state crackdowns. This extended to foreign policy where they had a caste system in place, with their inner circle representing China, Turkey, Ukraine, Israel and Russia and to a lesser extent, Germany and Italy.
The culture of Azerbaijan and Central Asia has developed as a result of many influences; that is why Azerbaijanis are, in many ways, bi-cultural. Today, national traditions are well preserved in the country despite Western influences, including globalized consumer culture. Some of the main elements of the Azerbaijani culture are: music, literature, folk dances and art, cuisine, architecture, cinematography and Novruz Bayram. The latter is derived from the traditional celebration of the New Year in the ancient Iranian religion of Zoroastrianism. Novruz is a family holiday.
The profile of Azerbaijan's population consists, as stated above, of Azerbaijanis, as well as other nationalities or ethnic groups, compactly living in various areas of the country as well as throughout Turkmenistan post-Unification. Azerbaijani national and traditional dresses are the Chokha and Papakhi. There are radio broadcasts in Russian, Georgian, Kurdish, Lezgian and Talysh languages, which are financed from the state budget. Some local radio stations in Balakan and Khachmaz organize broadcasts in Avar and Tat.[252] In Baku several newspapers are published in Russian, Kurdish (Dengi Kurd), Lezgian (Samur) and Talysh languages.[252] Jewish society "Sokhnut" publishes the newspaper Aziz.
When the countries gained independence in 1991, there was concern that Muslim fundamentalism would spread across the region. The expectation was that a series of countries long denied freedom of religious practice would undergo a very rapid increase in the expression of its dominant faith.
According to a 2024 Pew Research Poll, 88% of the union identified as Muslim, 8% Christian and 4% irreligious. The two largest languages were Uzbek with 37.7 million speakers (42.1%) and Russian with 23,500,000 speakers (26.2%) in the 2020's.
Before the Russian colonisation, the Kazakhs had a highly developed culture based on their nomadic pastoral economy. Islam was introduced into the region with the arrival of the Arabs in the 8th century. It initially took hold in the southern parts of Turkestan and spread northward. The Samanids helped the religion take root through zealous missionary work. The Golden Horde further propagated Islam amongst the tribes in the region during the 14th century.
Kazakhstan is home to a large number of prominent contributors to literature, science and philosophy: Abay Qunanbayuli, Mukhtar Auezov, Gabit Musirepov, Kanysh Satpayev, Mukhtar Shakhanov, Saken Seyfullin, Jambyl Jabayev, among many others.
Category:Countries