New Delhi, Oct. 10 -- Corridors, cards, and leverage: inside Moscow's push to keep Central Asia close

Dushanbe -Vladimir Putin arrived with a familiar pitch and a sharpened edge. At a summit with the leaders of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan, the Russian president urged Central Asia to do more business with Russia, to build more tracks and roads that lead through Russian territory, and to stitch together payment and settlement systems that reduce exposure to Western sanctions. The message was cast as pragmatic, almost technocratic. The subtext was hard to miss. Russia wants to retain gravity in a region that has diversified its bets, that now looks to Beijing for capital, to Turkey and the Caucasus for a...