Insiders have shone a light on the shadowy workings of Uzbekistan’s presidential office during the country’s ongoing energy crisis, openDemocracy can reveal today.
Two Uzbekistan government sources have told openDemocracy that Sardor Umurzakov, the head of the country’s presidential administration, ordered the immediate arrest of a senior energy official who was present at a high-level government meeting in December.
“Those who got us into this situation will not come out of it untouched. Several of them are sitting here among us,” Umurzakov had said in a previous meeting two days before the arrests, which came as people across Uzbekistan lost gas and electricity during extremely cold weather.
