🇰🇿🇷🇺 Kazakhstan halts arms exports for a year. The Kazakh government did not give a reason for its decision. But Russian pro-gov telegram channels crow about this as if it's their achievement.
A mini thread about what is happening between Kazakhstan and Russia 🧵🔽
From the very beginning of the war in Ukraine Kazakhstan has avoided taking sides in the crisis while calling for its peaceful resolution.
Pro-Russian telegram channels actively claim that Kazakhstan exports arms and ammunition to Ukraine via proxies, by order from the UK.
The allegations are based on a supposedly leaked contract by which Kazakhstan allegedly exports Soviet weapons & ammunition to the UK
Kazakhstan officially rejected all allegations. On the sideline, 🇰🇿government started to closely cooperate with other countries.
🇰🇿boosted its relations with Türkiye to the level of expanded “strategic partnership" & has agreed to exchange military intelligence info w/ 🇹🇷
This (together w/ some other news about e.g. Tajikistan's drills w/ the US) sparked another wave of anger among Russian hawks.
This was the context of the meeting between Tokayev & Putin in Sochi.
The main message of Tokayev was that "there is no ground for making pessimistic forecasts regarding the future" of RUS-KZ relations.
Putin was friendly, but not talkative: "There are many questions..."
Kazakhstan (and other Central Asian states) do not know where are the red lines right now in relations with Russia. Before February 24th the limits were obvious but the war became a storm that wiped the clarity off.
The new redlines between Russia and Kazakhstan will not be set only by 🇷🇺 or 🇰🇿. It is a mutual process where both need each other. But after the war and its isolation 🇷🇺 needs 🇰🇿 more than ever before.
Kazakhstan embraces Russia's weak moment as an opportunity to enlarge its space for maneuvering in future cooperation/co-existing. That is why Kazakhstan is acting as boldly as it can and waits for Russia's reaction or indication of the new limits in the relationship.
The downside of this strategy is Russia's unpredictability. Many in Russia are already talking about the "denazification" of Kazakhstan.
However, Kazakhstan believes it has time while all of Russia's energy and resources are concentrated on the invasion of Ukraine.
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A hastily deleted post by 🇷🇺ex-president Dmitry Medvedev suggesting that after Ukraine, Moscow might turn its attention to the fate of Kazakhstan, was taken at face value by many.
Could Russia really enter into conflict with another of its neighbors? 🧵
Kazakhstan’s defiant rhetoric has been backed up by action, with 🇰🇿authorities sending humanitarian aid to Ukraine and maintaining contact with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Karakalpakstan occupies more than a third of the territory of Uzbekistan, but w/ a population density of 11.7 people per square kilometer (in Tashkent it is 6,379).
W/ a small population, Karakalpakstan is strategically important for Tashkent. The main gas pipelines pass through it, large oil&gas reserves are located there. Karakalpakstan is also the champion in the production of chemical products in Uzbekistan, more than 30%.
In comparison w/ other regions of 🇺🇿, Karakalpakstan is the most depressive. It has the lowest birth rate, the highest death rate of women during childbirth (x2 the average for 🇺🇿), and the highest migration abroad (30% of all migrants from 🇺🇿 abroad come from Karakalpakstan).
🇰🇿 President Tokayev gave his first interview after the political crisis in Kazakhstan for @tvkhabar24
I watched the whole thing so you don't have to, here's the interview in a nutshell⬇️
What happened in 🇰🇿?
Tokayev:
- At first, it was peaceful protests. But after that came organized groups that had a plan of coup d'état
- The Almaty airport was taken under control to allow more terrorists from "one particular city in Central Asia" to come to 🇰🇿
Xi Jinping for the first time chaired a summit with the 5 Central Asian states. The importance of such events is more symbolic than tangible, but they give us a hint about the trends that we'll see in future cooperation.
China's presence in Central Asia will continue to rely on bilateral ties rather than institutions. As @nivayau points out, even during this event the leaders were not discussing regional cooperation.
Institutions do not appear from nowhere, it takes time
Regional cooperation is complicated also by the competition between CA states over Beijing's attention. During the summit, president Toqaev mentioned that half of the investment from China to the region goes to KZ.
So, internal rivalry is another obstacle in regionalization
Soon (this month) Uzbekistan's President Savkat Mirziyoyev is to visit Russia. This might become a very important event in the modern history of the relationship between Moscow & Tashkent.
Here's why ⬇️
Russia and Uzbekistan have been preparing this visit for a long time. It was postponed several times because of the COVID-19. But now when the situation w/ pandemic in Russia is worse than ever Mirziyoyev is still coming. This might mean that it's the virus that was the reason.
It took a long time for Moscow and Tashkent to find a middle ground in nuances of closer cooperation in the economy, Russia's migration policies, and security. Uzbekistan doesn't want to exchange its precious autonomy for peanuts.
DISCLAIMER: As has been said many times by @EvanFeigenbaum & @SheenaGreitens, China is NOT building a military base in Tajikistan. This rather is a joint law enforcement facility of a police outpost.