The Russian Invasion of Kazakhstan thread

[harrybarracuda]

A Russia-led military alliance said on Thursday that it will dispatch peacekeeping forces to Kazakhstan after the country's president asked for help in controlling protests that escalated into violence, including the seizure and setting afire of government buildings.

Protesters in Kazakhstan's largest city stormed the presidential residence and the mayor's office Wednesday and set both on fire, according to news reports, as demonstrations sparked by a rise in fuel prices escalated sharply in the Central Asian nation.

Police reportedly fired on some protesters at the residence in Almaty before fleeing. They have clashed repeatedly with demonstrators in recent days, deploying water cannons in the freezing weather, and firing tear gas and concussion grenades.

The Kazakh Interior Ministry said eight police officers and national guard members were killed in the unrest and more than 300 were injured. No figures on civilian casualties were released.

As Kazakhstan boils over, Russia-led alliance sending peacekeepers - The Week

[harrybarracuda]

Pictures of the unrest.

Violent clashes in Kazakhstan amid fuel protests – in pictures | World news | The Guardian

[harrybarracuda]

MOSCOW, Jan 6 (Reuters) - Several armoured personnel carriers and dozens of troops moving on foot entered the main square of Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city, on Thursday morning where hundreds of people were protesting against the government for the third day, Reuters correspondents reported from the scene.
Gunshots were heard as troops approached the crowd, according to Reuters witnesses.

Troops, protesters clash on Almaty main square in Kazakhstan; shots heard | Reuters

[misskit]

Kazakhstan unrest: Dozens killed in crackdown

Security forces in the Central Asian state of Kazakhstan say they have killed dozens of anti-government rioters in the main city, Almaty.

They moved in after protesters tried to take control of police stations in the city, a police spokeswoman said.


Twelve members of the security forces have been killed and 353 injured in the unrest, sparked by a doubling in the cost of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).


Russia is sending in troops at the request of the Kazakh president.


They will be deployed to help "stabilise" the country, which is a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) along with Russia, Belarus, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia.


The CSTO confirmed Russian paratroopers were being dispatched as peacekeepers, with advance units already deployed.

Kazakhstan unrest: Dozens killed in crackdown - BBC News

[OhOh]

CSTO Council decides to send collective peacekeeping forces to Kazakhstan

The aim is to stabilize and normalize the situation in the country

6 Jan, 08:02

"The Collective Security Council of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) made the decision to send peacekeeping forces of the Organization to Kazakhstan, Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, who chairs the Council in 2022, said on Thursday.

"In view of the address of President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and considering the threat to national security and sovereignty of the Republic of Kazakhstan, caused in particular by interference from the outside, the CSTO Collective Security Council in accordance with Article 4 of the Collective Security Treaty made the decision to send CSTO Collective Peacekeeping Forces to the Republic of Kazakhstan for a limited period with the aim of stabilization and normalization of the situation in this country,"

Pashinyan wrote in Facebook.

On January 2, crowds took to the streets in the cities of Zhanaozen and Aktau in the Mangystau Region, in southwestern Kazakhstan, protesting against high fuel prices. Two days later, the protests engulfed Almaty, in the country’s southeast, where the police used flashbangs to disperse the crowd, as well as other cities, including Atyrau, Aktobe (in the west), Uralsk (in the northwest), Taraz, Shymkent, Kyzylorda (in the south), Karaganda (in the northeast) and even Kazakhstan’s capital Nur-Sultan.

The president imposed a two-week state of emergency in the Mangystau Region and in the Almaty Region, as well as the republic’s largest city of Almaty and the capital Nur-Sultan. On January 5, the head of the state also accepted the government’s resignation."

CSTO Council decides to send collective peacekeeping forces to Kazakhstan - World - TASS

[misskit]

Dozens ‘Liquidated’ in Kazakhstan Ahead of Russian Troops’ Arrival

Dozens of demonstrators have been reported dead in Kazakhstan as protests turned to bloodshed Thursday and Russia sent in paratroopers in a dangerous bid to crush the uprising.


Gunfire erupted anew Thursday afternoon in the main square in the largest city, Almaty, according to local reports, with TASS news agency citing witnesses to report multiple deaths. There was no immediate confirmation of the fatalities, however.

The flare-up comes after police in the city said “dozens of attackers were liquidated” overnight as they tried to storm government buildings, referring to demonstrators. The local police chief was quoted in local media calling the protesters “extremists and radicals.”


State TV reported that more than a dozen members of law enforcement were dead, two of whom were said to have been decapitated, according to Reuters. At least 2,000 people have reportedly been arrested.


Banks have been shut down across the nation, flights into the country have been halted, and residents inside Almaty have been cut off from the rest of the world as the internet was shut off, making the full extent of the chaos unclear.

Video posted by a local blogger showed the mayor’s office ablaze, along with a nearby prosecutor’s office, both of which lit up the sky as gunfire and sirens could be heard in the background.


Russia’s foreign ministry urged any citizens in Kazakhstan to remain indoors and claimed outside forces were behind the chaos.


“We view the recent events in a friendly country as an attempt, inspired from the outside, to undermine the security and integrity of the state by force, using trained and organized armed formations,” the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement, echoing rhetoric frequently used by the Kremlin to claim popular protests are actually Western-led attempts to destabilize the region.


A foreign ministry spokesperson also responded to criticism of Moscow’s decision to send troops by comparing the situation to the U.S. Capitol riot.


“If you want to draw parallels, then it’s better to remember the U.S. Capitol, which American citizens stormed exactly a year ago—on these exact same January days,” Maria Zakharova wrote on Facebook, claiming that “American authorities brutally suppressed any attempts to question [authorities’] right to defend the constitutional order.”

The escalation in violence comes after the army was called in to stamp out the protests, which arose from anger over the end of price controls on liquefied petroleum gas, which caused consumer prices to soar. But the unrest soon snowballed into wider anti-government protests, with demonstrators raging against Nursultan Nazarbayev, the country’s iron-fisted leader who ruled for three decades until he stepped down in 2019, only to retain power with his role as head of the country’s security council.


Demonstrators have directed their ire at him with chants of, “Old man, go away!”


Nazarbayev was stripped of the security council post as protests spun out of control Wednesday.


But his removal did little to calm demonstrators, who have continued to rail against Nazarbayev’s handpicked successor, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.


Tokayev has dubbed the demonstrators “terrorist gangs” and accused them of “undermining the integrity of the state.”


His decision Wednesday to call on Moscow for help has only fanned the flames, with many warning the move will only spread the unrest throughout the region.


On Thursday, as troops from Belarus, Armenia, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan made their way in to put down the protests as part of a “peacekeeping” mission by the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization, things took another turn as a group of hackers announced plans to dox the Belarussian troops involved.


The “Cyber Partisans” vowed to unmask each and every Belarussian soldier sent to Kazakhstan, Meduza reports.


Belarus’ authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko, meanwhile, addressed protesters and urged them to “get on your knees and apologize to the troops.”


At a meeting with security officials, Lukashenko also explained his decision to send troops to the protests, saying if Kazakhstan were “given up,” it “would be such a gift to NATO, like Ukraine to America.”

A Russian lawmaker offered similar sentiments on Instagram, calling Central Asia “Russian land” and floating the idea of a referendum for Kazakh citizens on whether they want to become part of the Russian Federation.


https://www.thedailybeast.com/dozens...chaos?ref=home

[Backspin]

A Russia-led military alliance said on Thursday that it will dispatch peacekeeping forces to Kazakhstan after the country's president asked for help in controlling protests that escalated into violence, including the seizure and setting afire of government buildings.

Protesters in Kazakhstan's largest city stormed the presidential residence and the mayor's office Wednesday and set both on fire, according to news reports, as demonstrations sparked by a rise in fuel prices escalated sharply in the Central Asian nation.

Police reportedly fired on some protesters at the residence in Almaty before fleeing. They have clashed repeatedly with demonstrators in recent days, deploying water cannons in the freezing weather, and firing tear gas and concussion grenades.

The Kazakh Interior Ministry said eight police officers and national guard members were killed in the unrest and more than 300 were injured. No figures on civilian casualties were released.

As Kazakhstan boils over, Russia-led alliance sending peacekeepers - The Week

Its all legal under international law. Its how treaties work. Almost every country in the CSTO is sending units

[harrybarracuda]

CSTO Council decides to send collective peacekeeping forces to Kazakhstan

Why are Russia in the "CSTO"?

They are the ones from which most of its members need defending.

[harrybarracuda]

I'm not sure the Kazakh puppet quite knows what's going on:

"It is an attack on our citizens who are asking me... to help them urgently," he said.

I don't think they're asking for him to kill them. I think they're asking him to fuck off and take the dictator with him.

[HermantheGerman]

Its all legal under international law. Its how treaties work. Almost every country in the CSTO is sending units

CSTO = countries that are corrupt dictatorships? Since when have THEY ever respected treaties? They already broke the one from the OSZE, that says not allowed to turn off the internet, free speech etc.

Putin and Co. always like to blame outside forces when something goes wrong inside their countries. That was not what the CSTO was meant for. Then again...what do you know Backspin. You are just a dumb ass little Google Boy who gets everything wrong since first grade (maybe earlier )

[panama hat]

Russian peacekeeping forces

Dozens ‘Liquidated’

Ah, the infamous "western-trained agitators and terrorists" are behind it all according to the Kazakh Grand Poobah.

[harrybarracuda]

You are just a dumb ass little Google Boy who gets everything wrong since first grade (maybe earlier )

I think you're aiming a bit high there Herman.

[Bonecollector]

Once they are there, they won't be leaving anytime soon.

[Switch]

I asked an engineer who has worked there for the last 2 years. He tells me the whole country is corrupt.
If ‘peacekeepers’ are killing people, they need new rules of engagement.

[harrybarracuda]

I asked an engineer who has worked there for the last 2 years. He tells me the whole country is corrupt.
If ‘peacekeepers’ are killing people, they need new rules of engagement.

They're not peacekeepers, they are Putin's enforcers sent there to kill protestors.

Their rules of engagement are quite clear: Protect the fellow dictator at all costs.

[Backspin]

Why are Russia in the "CSTO"?

They are the ones from which most of its members need defending.

Why is the US the head of NATO ?

Armenia is actually the current head of the CSTO. The Armenian president , who is supported by the US, made the call.

And btw , i have Herman the Nazi on block. Only person i have ever blocked on a forum. The dry fucking dull box head kraut

[Backspin]

[Backspin]

You'll hear rumblings of a democratic opposition. This opposition is operated and funded by a Kazak criminal oligarch that is wanted in the UK but being sheltered in France. The HQ of his "party" is in Ukraine.

Mukhtar Qabyluly Ablyazov is a Kazakh businessman and political activist who served as chairman of Bank Turan Alem (BTA Bank),^[1] and is a co-founder and a leader of the unregistered political partyDemocratic Choice of Kazakhstan (QDT).^[2] He was also the former head of the state-owned Kazakhstan Electricity Grid Operating Company (KEGOC) as well as briefly holding the position of Minister for Energy, Industry, and Trade under Balgimbayev's cabinet before resigning from and joining the opposition against President Nursultan Nazarbayev.^[3] In November 2001, he, along with other former Kazakh government officials founded the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (QDT). As result, Ablyazov was imprisoned in March 2002 over accusations of financial fraud and political abuse until being pardoned by Nazarbayev in 2003. After being released from prison, he ceased his formal political activities with the opposition.


Ablyazov has been accused of embezzling $6 billion from BTA Bank while serving as chairman.^[4] In 2015, a French court in Lyon issued an extradition order.^[5] However, in December 2016, France's highest administrative court, the Conseil d'Etat, canceled the extradition order, on the ground that Russia had a political motive in making the extradition request.^[6] Ablyazov was subsequently released from the Fleury-Mérogis Prison and is believed to currently reside in Paris, France.^[7] The UK High Court of Justice has twice issued arrest warrants on Ablyazov; most recently on 25 July 2019.

[harrybarracuda]

I see skidmark is busy googling again.

What a fucking waste of space.

[panama hat]

And btw , i have Herman the Nazi on block. Only person i have ever blocked on a forum. The dry fucking dull box head kraut

No-one gives a shit, especially Herman I'd suggest.

I see skidmark is busy googling again.
What a fucking waste of space.

His parents need to re-school him.

[DrWilly]

No-one gives a shit, especially Herman I'd suggest.



His parents need to re-school him.

Needs to wipe his tiny brain clean and start all over again. Too much crud in there right now for re-schooling to help.

[misskit]

Russia’s Involvement in Kazakhstan’s Crisis Could Have Wide Implications

Experts believe Moscow risks being sucked into neighboring unrest and having to manage strategic instability on two fronts.



Russia’s deployment of troops as part of a military alliance to put down growing protest in neighboring Kazakhstan will have major ramifications for Moscow’s foreign and domestic policy, experts told the Moscow Times on Thursday.

“For now, this is less an armed intervention than a police operation,” said Andrei Kortunov, head of the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), a Kremlin-linked think tank.

“But if it drags on, consequences for Russia could mount up.”

The deployment of 3,000 Russian paratroopers came after Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev made a formal request for assistance to the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a post-Soviet military alliance led by Russia.

Alongside Russia, CSTO member states Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan sent troop contingents to Kazakhstan, an important regional power with vast energy resources and a founding member of the Eurasian Economic Union, a Russia-led regional trade bloc.

Tokayev said that intervention was necessary to counter a “terrorist threat” after protests against a fuel price hike spread nationwide, with demonstrators in Kazakhstan’s commercial capital Almaty seizing weapons, setting government buildings alight and shutting down the country’s main international airport.

Kazakh media have reported that at least twelve police officers have been killed during the unrest, with “dozens” more fatalities reported.

On Thursday morning, footage circulated on social media showed Kazakh army units exchanging gunfire with armed opponents as they attempted to retake Almaty.

For many Russian observers, the sudden explosion of unrest in a country otherwise known for political stability, underlines a sense that intervention — which until only hours before Tokayev’s plea for help had been sworn off by the Kremlin — was unavoidable.

“I don’t think Russia had any choice but to intervene,” said RIAC’s Kortunov, who pointed to a 2020 revolution in Kazakhstan’s Central Asian neighbor Kyrgyzstan, and last year’s Taliban takeover in Afghanistan.

“Given how violent the unrest was and how unstable the region is, this seems like it was the only option,'' he added. “But it’s important that this is a short, time-limited operation and that we don’t get sucked in.

The crisis in Kazakhstan comes at an awkward time for Russia.

With tensions with the West on the rise amid a months-long military buildup on the Ukrainian border and fears of war, Russian has moved westward many of the units it usually deploys in Siberia and the Urals, along its frontier with Kazakhstan.

As reports of unrest spread across Kazakhstan on Wednesday, parts of the pro-Kremlin media labeled the events a “Maidan”, referring to the 2014 revolution in Ukraine that touched off that country’s break with Russia, and accused the West of contriving the disturbances ahead of high-stakes U.S.-Russia talks this month.

Tokayev likewise claimed that his country was under “external attack” from “bands of terrorists.”

However, with Russia’s armed forces heavily engaged along the Ukrainian border, and much of its diplomatic capacity given over to ongoing talks with the U.S. on security guarantees, the Kazakhstan crisis represents an unwelcome turn of events for Moscow.

“The Kremlin needs to divide [its] attention … and manage strategic instability on two fronts,” Alexander Baunov, a Russian foreign policy analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center think tank, wrote on Twitter.

For some experts, the biggest potential risk is Russia’s getting sucked into Kazakhstan’s domestic disputes.

Though Kazakhstan has a large Russian majority, and the country’s north has sometimes been the object of irredentist dreams, Russo-Kazakh relations have been generally friendly since the end of the U.S.S.R.

With Russia now assuming a leading role in underwriting Kazakhstan’s government, RIAC’s Kortunov fears an outpouring of Kazakh nationalism and disruption of the country’s fragile internal ethnic balance.

Previous Russian interventions in post-Soviet countries have seen friendly states take sharp anti-Russian turns, Kortunov noted.

“There’s a real chance that we could see the rise of anti-Russian sentiment in Kazakhstan, along the lines of Ukraine or Georgia,” he said.


Domestic risks

The crisis in Kazakhstan is also likely to impinge on Russia’s domestic politics.

Though both countries have been largely stable under long-standing authoritarian regimes, widespread economic frustrations and inequality have eaten away at both governments’ popular standing.

In Russia, as in Kazakhstan, unpopular socio-economic reforms including a 2018 pension age increase, and wage stagnation have driven down the president’s once sky-high approval rating.

A recent Levada Center poll showed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s electoral rating — the number of Russians ready to vote for his re-election — at 32%, a record low.

“Putin generally does believe in his own popularity,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, founder of R.Politik, a political consultancy firm.

“But the events in Kazakhstan could make him doubt how sustainable that popularity really is.”

For some opposition-minded Russians, recalling how the outbreak of unrest in Belarus in summer 2020 presaged an unprecedented crackdown at home, events in Kazakhstan bodes ill for Russian liberties.

“We’ll be the ones to pay for the Kazakhs’ freedom,” wrote Kirill Martynov, deputy editor of Russia’s independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper, on Twitter, predicting a crackdown by Russian security services fearing copycat protests across the border.


Grip on power

For others, the protests in Kazakhstan — which were in large part directed against Nursultan Nazarbayev, the country’s founding president who resigned in 2019 but still retains extensive behind-the-scenes powers — could influence Vladimir Putin’s choice on whether to stay in office or not.

After Nazarbayev — who is personally close to Putin — departed from the presidency to head his country’s powerful Security Council, some observers suggested that the Russian president might eventually follow the Kazakh model, by handing over day-to-day responsibilities to a hand-picked successor while retaining ultimate control.

However, the outpouring of rage against the man who has led Kazakhstan since it was part of the Soviet Union, including scenes of a Nazarbayev statue in the city of Taldykorgan being felled by protesters, may lead Putin to conclude that loosening his grip on power is dangerous.

Tokayev’s Wednesday announcement that he was taking over the country’s Security Council, displacing his erstwhile patron, only underlines the risks of any handover of power.

“Kazakh events make [the] Kazakhstan power transit scenario virtually impossible for Russia,” wrote Carnegie’s Baunov.

“Now Putin will hardly be inclined to leave his position to a successor.”

Russia’s Involvement in Kazakhstan’s Crisis Could Have Wide Implications - The Moscow Times

[HermantheGerman]

I asked an engineer who has worked there for the last 2 years. He tells me the whole country is corrupt.
If ‘peacekeepers’ are killing people, they need new rules of engagement.

My Engineer tells me that they are all corrupt Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, Tajikistan

[HermantheGerman]

Russia’s Involvement in Kazakhstan’s Crisis Could Have Wide Implications
Experts believe Moscow risks being sucked into neighboring unrest and having to manage strategic instability on two fronts.

Two fronts? Let's hope for more.

Now its time for the people of Belarus to go on the streets and do the same.
Ukraine has to build up their forces near the Russian border etc. etc.
Let's hope this spreads like a wildfire, Russia falls apart and Putin gets killed.

[harrybarracuda]

Now its time for the people of Belarus to go on the streets and do the same.

Putin already sent troops there to kill protestors.