President Vladimir Putin's top security aide on Tuesday accused the West of deliberately stirring up trouble in Central Asia where Moscow is trying hard to recover the influence it held during the Soviet era.
"Pressure from political and military structures of Nato and the United states in Central Asia raises tension in the region," RIA news agency quoted Igor Ivanov, the secretary of the Security Council - Putin's top advisory board - as saying.
"We are facing practical attempts to interfere in the political life of newly independent states under the disguise of promoting democratic values and freedoms ... pressurising authorities through public protests," he added.
The normally soft-spoken former foreign minister made the comments at a meeting of Russia-led regional organisation Collective Security Treaty (CSTO), which includes Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Fellow ex-Soviet states Belarus and Armenia are also members.
He did not elaborate but he was clearly referring, in part, to Western pressure on Uzbekistan over its violent crackdown on popular protests in the eastern town of Andizhan in which more than 500 people were killed according to witnesses.
The Central Asian state is not a CSTO member but earlier this month it signed a treaty with Russia which includes military and political co-operation in times of crisis.
Moscow lost much of its sway over the region with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 as Western influence began to move in.
But peaceful pro-Western revolutions in ex-Soviet Georgia and Ukraine in the past two years have rung alarm bells among Central Asia's hard-line rulers who have started to renew close ties with Moscow.
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