CENTRAL ASIA IN FOREIGN POLICY PRIORITIES OF RUSSIA: HISTORY AND CURRENT STATUS

The region of Central Asia is traditionally assigned an important place in Russia's foreign policy strategy. Considering the vast areas of the Russian state, maintaining security and controlling long borders has always been an uneasy and responsible foreign policy task. In this regard, it was very important for the Russian leadership to find the most favorable geopolitical locations, which, on the one hand, made it possible to contain external threats and, on the other hand, to spread their own influence. One of such outposts of Russia's geopolitical influence was and remains the Central Asian region