On 17 March 2022, the media in Europe and Asia broke the news that on the 22nd day of the treacherous invasion of the independent state of Ukraine by the Russian troops, Tashkent officially took Ukraine’s side in the Russian-Ukrainian war.

These reports were based on the speech of Uzbek Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov delivered at the plenary session of the Senate of the Oliy Majlis on 17 March 2022. The speech was read in Uzbek language. Let us look into this matter and see if this news is, in fact, true.

On 25 February, a telephone conversation took place between Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and the President of Uzbekistan. The call was initiated by the Russian President. During this conversation Mirziyoyev, being a true vassal of the Kremlin, expressed his understanding of actions taken by Russia in Ukraine. That is, in fact, Shavkat Mirziyoyev supported Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

On 2 March 2022, our social media pages published a post stating that the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and were calling on Moscow to immediately withdraw all of its armed forces from the territory of Ukraine.

Of the 193 UN member states with voting rights, 141 voted in favour of the resolution. The cowardly leadership of Uzbekistan, having found nothing better to do, simply ignored the voting by not taking part in it.

On 6 March 2022 one of the pro-Kremlin propaganda channels, namely “Russia 24”, aired their regular program titled “In the middle of Asia with Robert Frantsev”. The host, in an unacceptable, humiliating tone, criticized the Uzbek media and their rather balanced report on the Russian military aggression against its neighbour.

By shamelessly interfering into the work of the local media, the propagandist of the state television channel Russia 24 called on the local supporters of the “Russian world” (read: Russian fascism), who are becoming increasingly active in Uzbekistan, to become more visible.

The Uzbek foreign ministry chose to show no reaction to these derogatory invectives by the Kremlin propagandists. After this episode, the Uzbek foreign ministry should have, at the very least, summoned the Russian ambassador to Tashkent in order to hand him a note of protest.

But, naturally, this never happened, because Uzbek Foreign Minister A. Kamilov had always defended and lobbied the Kremlin’s interests on the international arena on behalf of Uzbekistan.

Just like his son Daniyar, Abdulaziz Kamilov is a Russian citizen and is also an agent of Russia’s influence in the country. If an expert with a perfect command of the Uzbek language carefully watched Kamilov’s speech at the Senate session, he could come to a logical conclusion that the minister’s speech was nothing more than a show-off, a pre-planned performance.

After Kamilov’s rather tedious speech in Uzbek (he was reading it from a piece of paper), the Senate Chairwoman Narbayeva turned to the audience and asked if anyone had any questions for the minister. The immediate reaction came from the chairman of the Senate Committee on Defense and Security Kutbidin Nukritdinovich Burkhanov, who took the floor and requested Minister Kamilov to voice the Uzbek position on the Ukrainian issue. Minister Kamilov answered the question by simply reading out a prepared answer, which was already known to everyone. It is very obvious that the whole situation was staged and had been planned in advance.

However, the live broadcasting of the Senate meeting made a difference. One needs to exercise a little attention and use one’s brains better. The journalists somehow did not pay attention to one very important issue mentioned in Kamilov’s Uzbek speech. He pointed out that Russia is Uzbekistan’s important strategic partner! According to him, the aggressor country continues to be a strategic partner to Uzbekistan. Against the backdrop of very tangible US and EU sanctions against Russia as a whole and against particular individuals and legal entities, the Uzbek authorities simply played up the world community in favour of the Kremlin to show their supposedly principled position. In a period of sanctions, Vladimir Putin continues to use Uzbekistan as a pander to his problems in accessing international technology, credit and food for his own needs. And, most importantly, all this is being done at the expense of the national interests of Uzbekistan and its people.