On 3 November 2023, the 10^th anniversary summit of the Organisation of Turkic States (OTS) began in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan. Following its results, a number of documents were signed – such as the “Astana Act”, “Declaration of the 10th Summit of the Organization of Turkic States”, “Decision of the Heads of State on awarding the status of Financial Centres of the Turkic World”, “Decision on granting observer status to the Economic Cooperation Organization in the Organization of Turkic States”, as well as “Joint Action Plan (road map) of the Organization of Turkic…

In April 2023, the Ministry of Energy of Kazakhstan assessed the degree of deterioration of the main CHPs in the country. As a result, it was found that most of the facilities were significantly depreciated, with many of them (as many as 17) having depreciation rates exceeding 70%. The Ministry’s report reflects another peculiarity of Kazakhstan’s CHPs – all of them (37 units) were built during the Soviet period. Privatisation of this sector of the economy in the 1990s led to the concentration of sectoral facilities with private companies…

Mongolia hosted official activities held by the Mongolian government as part of the “Mongolia Transport Week 2023” in early November 2023. Participating in the “week” were the nation’s prime minister, the Speaker of the State Great Khural, the Minister and Vice Minister of Road and Transport Development, representatives of major foreign and Mongolian corporations, the Civil Aviation Authority of Mongolia…

The French President Emmanuel Macron’s tour of Central Asia, who visited Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, came to an end on November 2 in Tashkent. The French president’s rhetoric this time was almost exactly the same as it had been during his summer visit to Mongolia. “This is the path for your country, which refuses to be a vassal of any powers and wants to maintain balanced relations with different countries in the interest of your people.” Such statements, with only minor variations, haunt the French president’s revolving entourage of interlocutors…

The Mongolian leadership’s unwillingness to express a clear desire to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is often interpreted by various experts as a demonstration of the country’s rejection of expanding partnerships with “non-Western” powers, as well as a peculiar gesture of distrust towards China. No one in Mongolia sees an immediate need for the country’s full SCO membership; the country is already surrounded by the organization’s space…

The 25^th meeting of the Intergovernmental Russian-Mongolian Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation was held on 23 October 2023 in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia. The meeting was jointly chaired by Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation V. Abramchenko and Vice Prime Minister, Minister of Economic Development of Mongolia Ch. Khurelbaatar. The main results of the meeting, although not notable for the abundance of new agreements and programmes, were marked by the emergence and return to the field of bilateral…

Mongolia signed a number of international air transport agreements in October 2023. So, on October 17 of this year, the General Directorate of Civil Aviation of Mongolia signed a memorandum of understanding with the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore and an air service agreement with Vietnam, both of which stated that the parties were willing to give up their airspace to allow free passage for their aircraft. A similar agreement was signed the day before with the Lao People’s Democratic Republic’s aviation authorities. A week earlier, namely on October 10, 2023…

In 1981 Mongolia’s “space pioneer,” the astronaut Jügderdemidiin Gürragchaa, made a flight on the Salyut 39 mission. He later became the head of the Russian-Mongolian Friendship Association A great deal has changed in Mongolia since then, not least the political system and the country’s economic and social development priorities. For a long time Mongolia could not afford to dream about having a space program, first because of its struggles to alleviate the acute poverty and other woes caused by “economic liberalization,” and…

On October 17, 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Mongolian counterpart Ukhnaagiin Khürelsükh. The meeting took place on the sidelines of the 3rd Belt and Road Forum in Beijing. This meeting was attended by ministers from both nations, transportation ministers, the Vice-Premier of the Russian Federation, the head of the Russian Economic Development Ministry, and the CEOs of three significant Russian corporations: Russian Railways…

On October 10 Mongolia’s president, Ukhnaagiin Khürelsükh, landed in Paris. Upon arrival, as he stepped onto the boarding ramp he was formally welcomed by the French Ambassador to Mongolia, the Mongolian Ambassador to France and the French Minister of Energy. On October 11, the Mongolian president had a meeting with the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo. Among the matters they touched on during their meeting were a number of the most pressing issues affecting Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia’s capital…

It is an accepted fact that when a major world power gets involved in a foreign conflict, it will always find local sympathizers – we could call them helpers or even collaborators – who, whether motivated by ideology or forced to do so by circumstances – support external intervention in the fate of their country. However, there is no guarantee that the world power that embarks on a war will be successful, either militarily or politically. Throughout history…

If railway transport in Mongolia made a qualitative breakthrough and had many ambitious endeavours in 2023, the country’s road transport had a symbolic moment that took place in 2022. We are talking about achieving an epoch-making transport and communication task, namely the final connection by asphalt roads the administrative centres of all parts of the country, 21 aimags with the country’s capital, Ulaanbaatar. However, the preliminary results for 2023 in the field of road transport are slightly brightened up by such a significant event for Mongolia. 2023 brought about a breakthrough in the field of transit…