Kazakhstan is distancing itself from Moscow

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ALMATY, Kazakhstan—At the start of the year, Russia dispatched more than 2,000 troops to its longtime ally Kazakhstan to help put down violent antigovernment unrest. Six weeks later, when Russian troops stormed into Ukraine, Kazakhstan had an opportunity to repay the favor by supporting the invasion.

It didn’t. Instead, Kazakhstan has joined other Central Asian countries along Russia’s southern frontier in staying neutral on the invasion, leaving Belarus as the only ex-Soviet state that has offered full-throated support.

Kazakhstan has promised to enforce Western sanctions against Moscow, said it would boost oil exports to Europe via routes that bypass Russia, upped its defense budget and hosted a U.S. delegation meant to coax the Central Asian country closer to Washington’s orbit.

The growing distance between Moscow and its largest ally in Central Asia represents an unexpected challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The two countries share a 4,750-mile border, the world’s second longest frontier after the U.S.-Canada border.

A telling moment came in June, when Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev flew to Russia for Mr. Putin’s flagship economic forum in St. Petersburg. Sharing the stage with the Russian president, Mr. Tokayev said Kazakhstan wouldn’t recognize the two Moscow-backed separatist states in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine that Mr. Putin says he is liberating. 

It’s a delicate balance. Kazakhstan has banned antiwar demonstrations that might anger Moscow, but also outlawed publicly displaying the Z sign that has become a pro-war symbol in Russia.

The U.S. outreach to Kazakhstan raised eyebrows in Moscow, said Andrei Grozin, a Central Asia researcher at the state-funded Russian Academy of Sciences. While the Kremlin isn’t troubled yet, he said, if Kazakhstan’s government were to turn hostile, that would be even more threatening to Russia than a hostile Ukraine, given the countries’ lengthy shared border.

“But I think it won’t come to this,” Mr. Grozin said. “Kazakhstan’s elite has a greater instinct for self-preservation than their colleagues in Ukraine.”

 

[Holy Mayhem 3,672]

I read it as “Kardashians distancing itself from Moscow” and my initial thoughts were 

[Debithius 6,056]

Smart choice, Russia even questioned their legitimacy as a country.

[CannaeDrive 3,412]

Good. Now change the regime at home, Kazakhs.