The Russian armed forces and their allies concluded their withdrawal from Kazakhstan on Wednesday, after their deployment in support of the government of the Central Asian country, threatened in early January by violent unrest.
More than 2,000 soldiers were sent to the former Soviet republic at the request of President Kassym Jomart Tokayev, following violence not seen since the country gained independence in 1991.
At the beginning of January, demonstrations against an increase in energy prices degenerated into riots and a strong repression, which left 225 dead, hundreds injured and at least 12,000 detained.
“The peacekeeping operation on the territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan concluded”, said Andrei Serdyukov, head of the mission of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Moscow-led military alliance that intervened at the request of the Kazakh government.
The Russian Defense Ministry stated that “Four Russian troop transport planes with soldiers took off from Nur Sultan and Almaty airports”, in Kazakhstan.
These airplanestransport to the last units” and those responsible, according to the ministry.
These troops did not participate in the clashes between the demonstrators and the Kazakh forces, but their dispatch signified the political and military support of Vladimir Putin’s Russia for the Kazakh regime.
The state of emergency established in the country after the demonstrations ended on Wednesday. Presidential spokesman Berik Ouali wrote on Facebook that “the unity and integrity of the people, the forces of order and the army” had restored order in the country.
Local authorities accused “terrorists” trained abroad to organize these riots, which made it possible to request this help from the CSTO, which, in addition to being led by Russia, includes Armenia, Belarus, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.
The contingent, deployed on January 6 in this former Soviet republic in central Asia, was made up of 2,030 Russian, Belarusian, Armenian, Tajik and Kyrgyz military personnel. His withdrawal began on January 13.
Power fight?
In Almaty, the country’s largest city, AFP journalists noted on Wednesday that police were still blocking access to several central streets after a banned opposition group called a protest.
Developments in Kazakhstan remain highly opaque, with signs of an internal power struggle at the top.
On Tuesday, the influential former president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, 81, claimed, in a video in which he appeared for the first time since the unrest, to be a “retired” and denied any conflict with his successor.
Nazarbáyev assured that Tokayev, to whom he handed over the presidency in 2019, “He had all the faculties.” “Therefore, there is no conflict or confrontation within the elite”, he added, denouncing “unsubstantiated rumours”.
The rioters’ anger was directed in particular at Nazarbayev, accused of having encouraged corruption in the former Soviet republic in central Asia, which he led for nearly three decades.
After his departure from the presidency in 2019, Nazarbayev had maintained an influential role in his country’s politics, claiming the title of Elbassy, head of the Nation in Kazakh, and retaining the head of the influential Security Council.
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