The current level of social tension in Kazakhstan can be characterized as moderate; however there are latent forms of conflicts in social sector, some of them began to develop gradually into spontaneous protest actions. So far actions of small scale, with mainly economic requirements only, are registered. Sharp devaluation of national currency in the second half of the year 2015 created a negative social and economic background for political processes in 2016. In case of further deterioration of an economic situation the number of protests of vulnerable social groups of the population can increase.

The 2016 started positively for the American-Uzbek relations. On January 19-20 another round of the Uzbek-American consultations took place in Washington. The USA delegation was headed by N. Biswal the Assistant Secretary of State for the Southern and Central Asian Affairs, the delegation of Uzbekistan was headed by A. Kamilov the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Uzbekistan. [1] On May 12 Foreign Minister A. Kamilov had a meeting with the US Ambassador in RU P. Spratlen, which took place in the MFA of RU. The parties discussed questions of bilateral relations in various areas: the program of boundary and regional security, economic relations, civil society, etc. Ambassador P. Spratlen stated: “Uzbekistan is an important partner of the USA in ensuring stability, prosperity and safety in the region of Central Asia” and reminded that the USA rendered significant assistance to Uzbekistan in the area of safety. [2]

The denunciation of the agreement on cooperation with the USA of 1993 (June 2015) complicated the relations between Washington and Bishkek. Nevertheless, both parties were disposed to talks [1]. On February, 9 2016 the US Ambassador in Kyrgyz Republic S. Gwaltney stated that Washington and Bishkek were going to conclude a new agreement on cooperation [2]. In April 2016, in the report on human rights situation the US State Department criticized the situation in KR. In this regard, the Ministry of External Affairs of RK stated “Such documents have no purpose of an in-depth study of human rights situation in any country including Kyrgyzstan. Typically, they are inspired by geopolitical considerations” [3].

In 2016, the American-Tajik dialogue was quite intensive in almost all sectors; therefore, we will dwell upon only the most important aspects of bilateral cooperation. On January, 25 the new US Ambassador Elisabeth Millard, who replaced Susan Elliott, arrived to Dushanbe. [1] On March, 11 2016 E. Millard presented letters of credence to the President Emomali Rahmon. [2] It is also worth noting, that on August, 3 2016 the delegation of Tajikistan took part in the foreign ministers meeting in the format of “C5 + 1” in Washington, D.C., and in November of the same year Daler Safarov, the representative of Tajikistan, was monitoring the US presidential election for the first time. [3]

For the last two years, the Russian economy has been going through a difficult period, which many politicians and experts associate with the effect of the sanctions imposed by Western countries and international organizations. The first sanctions were imposed in March 2014, and although the main unit of sanctions was already initiated in March-July 2014, the number of sanctions still continues to grow. Thus, the Russian economy has been under the pressure of sanctions since the second half of 2014, and it is exactly this period that should be analyzed in the context of the sanctions’ impact on the development of the Russian economy.