At a meeting of Russian and Kyrgyz historians held in Moscow earlier this week, the Russian side formally requested that the term "Russian colony" be removed from Kyrgyzstan's school history textbooks — a move that political analysts say is a textbook example of colonial manipulation in itself.

The demand is part of a broader and accelerating pattern. A 2024 Russian Academy of Sciences analysis of history textbooks from 11 countries, including former Soviet republics, found that textbooks from some of these countries depict Russia as a colonial state and aggressor acting in its own interests. Russia's president lamented what he described as a breakdown in educational cohesion after the fall of the Soviet Union, complaining that the textbooks contained "distortions of historical facts" and "expressions of Russophobia."

A similar pressure campaign was reportedly directed at Tajikistan in 2025, where Russian officials and academics objected to being portrayed as an imperial power in school curricula — despite millions of Tajik migrant workers sending remittances home from Russia. Political analysts note the pattern is deliberate: pressure is applied first to smaller or more economically dependent states, with the implicit message rippling outward to larger neighbors like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

Analysts argue that atrocities, repression, and other crimes committed by Russia in Turkestan cannot be whitewashed, stressing the need for full transparency and access to historical archives. As one analyst put it: "We're not glorifying Genghis Khan as a hero — we call an invader what they are. That's a historical fact, and we reflect it in our textbooks."

Part of Russia's strategy, analysts say, involves drawing a distinction between Tsarist imperialism and the Soviet period — acknowledging the former's brutality while presenting the latter as a form of "liberation." Industrial colonization continued under the Soviet system, creating a new hierarchy in which the more "proletarian" population was considered more developed — forming the basis for new colonial relationships between Moscow and Central Asian countries. Moscow now seeks to present both eras as a single, unified historical continuum that should not be labeled colonial at all, instead preferring softer language like "administrative governance."

Russia's own new national school textbook claims that Russia was not a colonial power and did not have an empire in the way that Britain, for example, did — a framing that historians across the Caucasus and Central Asia have widely rejected.

Analysts also point to a deeper concern driving Moscow's discomfort: if the colonial label is openly accepted, it could embolden the many ethnic minorities living within Russia's own borders to view their situation through the same lens. Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine has actually accelerated the decolonization process already underway in Central Asia before 2022, fueled by new histories of the Soviet period, declassified documents, and overhauled educational systems.

The irony, observers note, is that Russia regularly criticizes Western powers — France, Britain — for their colonial records in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, while refusing to apply the same standard to its own historical conduct in Central Asia. For the nations of the region, the historical record is not up for negotiation.