Kazakhstan, the scene last week of the largest anti-government protests since its independence in 1991, is one more notch in the seat belt that Russia aspires to maintain its influence in its backyard and contain the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) , which also includes Belarus, the Caucasus and Ukraine.
“We will not allow the situation to be agitated in our house and we will not allow the scene of the so-called color revolutions to take place“Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday during a videoconference of the leaders of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan.
Just as Ukraine is untouchable and cannot be a member of NATO, according to the Kremlin, what happens in Kazakhstan, one of the world’s richest countries in raw materials (gas, oil and uranium), does not concern the West either.
The seat belt begins in the Baltic and after crossing the Caucasus, and the Black and Caspian Seas, it extends to Central Asia, a region bordering China, Iran and Afghanistan.
Post-Soviet Military Alliance
Less than a week before the Geneva security negotiations, the CSTO, considered the post-Soviet military alliance or the new antagonist of NATO after the disappearance of the Warsaw Pact, sent troops to one of its members for the first time in 20 years.
“They had to react without delay and the request of the President of Kazakhstan (Kasim-Yomart Tokáyev) was immediately approved by all the member countries of the CSTOPutin stressed.
According to the Russian leader, “within hours“It was necessary to prevent that in Kazakhstan”the foundations of the state will be dynamited” Y “curb terrorists, criminals and looters”.
Although a majority of Kazakhs oppose foreign military assistance, Tokayev, a former Soviet diplomat specializing in China who took power in 2019, decided without hesitation to turn to the Kremlin for help.
On the same January 5, the first Russian special units were already on the ground to monitor strategic buildings. The next day the Belarusian detachments arrived.
“The CSTO demonstrated its potential, its ability to act quickly, decisively and effectively”Putin congratulated himself.
Panic of color revolutions
The previous requests to the CSTO by Kyrgyzstan and Armenia – scenes of bloody revolts, the first, and a military conflict with Azerbaijan, the second – were categorically rejected as they were not “external aggression”.
Although many have questioned the presence of 20,000 foreign terrorists as an argument to deploy foreign troops, as Tokayev said, Putin today denounced that Maidan technology was used in Kazakhstan, alluding to the popular revolution in Ukraine in 2014.
“I totally agreePutin said when Tokayev called the riots in recent days an “act of aggression.”
Analysts believe that the Kremlin cannot allow itself a violent regime change in the post-Soviet space as occurred in the revolutions of Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004 and 2014) and Kyrgyzstan (2005, 2010 and 2020).
Another excuse from Moscow is that 18% of the population of Kazakhstan is Russian, or 3.5 million. Therefore, it belongs to the “russian world”, That is to say to all those countries with large Russian-speaking minorities.
The underground granting of passports is another of Moscow’s preferred strategies to justify a possible intervention. This was the case in 2008 in South Ossetia and now in Donbas.
Russian troops, notice to the west
The deployment of Russian rapid reaction forces in another country just when there was talk of a possible invasion of Ukraine set off all the alarms in the West.
And it is that of the more than two thousand soldiers deployed in the largest Central Asian republic, the majority are Russian airborne forces.
The Russian generals said that the said military contingent will remain on the ground until the situation fully stabilizes. The Kazakh presidential spokesman limited it to one week.
“Of course, the entire contingent will be withdrawn from the territory of Kazakhstan. I want to emphasize that (it will be) for a limited period of time, the one that the President of Kazakhstan deems appropriatePutin said today.
Belarusian President Alexandr Lukashenko endorsed his ally: “We are not occupants. We have not gone there (to Kazakhstan) of our own free will. We were invited by our brothers, our friends ”.
Hands off the backyard
Without help from the CSTO, Putin agreed in 2020 with Lukashenko to send Russian units in case they were needed to crush anti-government protests.
It was not necessary, but in recent months Russian fighters and bombers have patrolled the Belarusian border with the Atlantic Alliance.
Russia, which sees the Caucasus as the quintessential backyard, also ended the war between Armenians and Azerbaijanis in Nagorno Karabakh in November 2020 with the dispatch of peacekeeping forces.
Ukraine is warned. Russia has a large number of troops and weapons in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Russian soldiers wait at the border for the results of security negotiations with the United States and NATO.
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