MOSCOW, November 8. /TASS/. The West has been trying to create levers of influence over Central Asia to put pressure on the nations of the region and sever their longstanding ties with Moscow, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev told counterparts from Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) nations at a meeting in Moscow.

"The changes in the geopolitical landscape have affected Central Asia, too," Patrushev said, referring to political pressure and economic blackmailing on the part of the West, including its threats to impose secondary sanctions. According to him, the Anglo-Saxon nations are pursuing the goal of establishing effective levers of influence enabling them to manipulate national elites in the Central Asian countries as well as the broad masses among these nations’ populations as part of an overall effort to foster destabilization in specific regions.

"Our adversaries are seeking to prevent Central Asian nations from further strengthening their ties with Russia as well as the unification of their economic potential and the formation of a new pole within the emerging multipolar world order," Patrushev emphasized.