Something similar happened in both Ukraine and Kirgizstan, where Leonid Kuchma and Askar Akaev turned to Moscow when the going got tough.

ECONOMIST: Uzbekistan

The affair has undermined the authority of President Askar Akaev's government.

ECONOMIST: Warnings for two governments

Askar Akaev may have been the least repressive despot in a bad neighbourhood, but he, his family and his cronies had monopolised power, and the state's meagre resources, for far too long.

ECONOMIST: Revolution reaches the steppe

The threat of Islamism there has been used to justify ever greater repression by presidents such as Nursultan Nazarbaev of Kazakhstan and Askar Akaev of Kirgizstan, who are squelching dissent as they entrench themselves in power.

ECONOMIST: Civil liberties

As Kirgizstan's president, Askar Akaev (once optimistically hailed as Central Asia's Thomas Jefferson because of his democratic words), becomes increasingly despotic, local people grumble that the Americans have boosted his power by buying fuel from businesses close to the seat of power.

ECONOMIST: Will intervention foster democracy?