20 October 2025
Tajikistan’s continued hesitation to seek membership in the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union is intriguing. A membership bid would signal Moscow’s success in using its last remaining instruments to assert dominance in Central Asia. In reality, Russia seems unable to convince even its closest partners that joining its integration projects serves their interests.
On 9–10 October 2025, Vladimir Putin visited Tajikistan to take part in the Russia–Central Asia and CIS summits, and to hold talks with the country’s president, Emomali Rahmon. The visit itself was not unexpected, as Dushanbe remains one of Moscow’s key security and economic partners.
What was unexpected, however, was the absence of any announcement regarding Tajikistan’s application to join the Russia-led trade bloc, the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), which several Russian newspapers had considered a done deal only weeks before the visit.
Established in 2014, the EAEU was aimed at securing the economic reintegration of post-Soviet states, while emulating the EU’s institutional design was intended to make it more attractive to would-be members. Still, the bloc has not gained any new members since Armenia and Kyrgyzstan joined Belarus, Russia, and Kazakhstan in 2015. Since then, Moldova and Uzbekistan have opted for observer status, while Tajikistan has ostensibly been weighing the pros and cons of joining.
In the grand scheme of things, Tajikistan’s accession bid would be entirely logical. The country was a member of all of the EAEU’s predecessors, which Russia established to spur economic integration in the post-Soviet space.
The reason Tajikistan has not submitted its membership application is that several current members have blocked its accession, arguably for security reasons. Indeed, Tajikistan’s border with Afghanistan has been rather porous in terms of smuggling in general and drug trafficking in particular.
President Rahmon, however, has framed this act of exclusion as Dushanbe’s sovereign choice and a demonstration of its multi-vector foreign policy. Meanwhile, Tajikistan’s politically connected economic elite has come to enjoy the benefits of a protected national market and generous Chinese investment.
Yet, on the eve of Putin’s visit, a change in the approach of both Dushanbe and, most importantly, Moscow seemed rather likely. Indeed, at least three relatively new factors were at play.
First, the Russian economy needs migrant labour, and Tajikistan’s leadership is keen to provide it. In 2024, remittances accounted for a whopping 49% of Tajikistan’s GDP (a notable upsurge from 39% in 2023), driving the economy’s 8% annual real growth. Almost all of these remittances come from Russia. With the war in Ukraine continuing, Russia faces a chronic labour shortage, and wages are rising. At the same time, the tightening of migration regulations in the aftermath of Moscow’s Crocus City Hall terrorist attack in March 2024 has seriously worsened the status of Tajik citizens in Russia.
Although current anti-migrant trends in Russia rule out the possibility of resolving all the problems of the Tajik community overnight, the principle of free movement of labour within the EAEU would make Tajik labour migrants in Russia somewhat less vulnerable. In turn, since migrants in Russia make up roughly 10% of Tajikistan’s population, improving their living and working conditions should boost President Rahmon’s popularity without infringing on the interests of the elite. The elite may lose some income if competition in the internal market increases but could expect compensation if remittances rise.
Second, as far as the respective “great games” are concerned, Russia’s endorsement of Tajikistan’s EAEU bid would make sense in the context of Sino-Russian interaction in Central Asia. China and Russia are competing for influence in the region, even though there was originally an understanding of a division of labour between the two: Russia was expected to play first fiddle in security matters, while China was to concentrate on economic affairs.
In the context of this competition, it would have come as no surprise if Tajikistan’s EAEU application had been announced soon after the Tianjin SCO summit, where China placed economic cooperation high on the organization’s agenda. In this regard, Tajikistan’s move would appear to be Moscow’s way of signalling to Beijing that it does not intend to merely acquiesce to China’s commanding trade and investment presence in Central Asia. This message would also be implicitly directed at Turkey, which in recent years has been extending its economic, political, and military outreach into Central Asia.
Finally, endogenous cooperation among Central Asian states has been gaining momentum recently. Although EAEU membership is not incompatible with regional initiatives, Tajikistan’s bid could serve to remind proponents of non-Russian-led integration, and Uzbekistan in particular, that Russia still has leverage when it comes to regionalism in Central Asia.
Against this backdrop, it is telling that, since the launch of Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine, senior Russian officials have repeatedly welcomed the idea of Tajikistan joining the EAEU. The absence of such a bid suggests that it is Dushanbe, not Moscow, applying the brakes, and that Tajikistan prefers to continue bilateral bargaining with Russia. Vladimir Putin’s statement at the CIS summit that “the doors of the Eurasian Economic Union are always open” sounded diplomatic but may have concealed his disappointment.
Dushanbe’s hesitation is understandable. It is no secret that the bloc slipped into a period of stagnation soon after its inception. Its decision-making remains intergovernmental rather than supranational. The sheer size of the Russian economy leaves its partners with little negotiating power in the event of disagreements, but they can still derail the implementation of any decisions they object to. The only real freedom of movement achieved within the EAEU is labour mobility, while even the movement of goods has yet to be fully liberalized. Most importantly, without Ukraine, the reintegration of post-Soviet countries makes little economic sense, regardless of institutional design.
Conceivably, Tajikistan’s EAEU entry would represent Russia’s last attempt to reunite at least the economies of countries on its former imperial periphery, as the Kremlin is running out of both carrots to dangle and sticks to wield. However, Tajikistan’s hypothetical accession would not help the EAEU to move beyond its current dormant phase. Nor would it help Russia to substantiate its claim to regional hegemony, a status it no longer enjoys.
