Thread by @talkrealopinion

While the war in Ukraine is far from over in Kazakhstan very similar activity is taking place to what happened in Ukraine since 1991.

The US is financing local nationalists, journalists, public figures via grants.

Promoting same victimhood history, with a lot of focus on the famine in the region, just as Ukraine.

Completely ignoring millions of ethnic Russians that were affected in Russia at the same time.

Kazakh nationalists record videos for social media where they bully ethnic Russians that don't speak the Kazakh language. Telling them to go back to Russia despite the fact that they were born in Kazakhstan and are citizens of the country.

There is also some involvement in the region from Turkey to promote Pan-Turkism.

Combined with the efforts of the US to turn the country another anti-Russia region a war in the future is not so far-fetched.

Ethnic Kazakh population by percentage on the map.

The top part is North Kazakhstan where ethnic Russians still outnumber the Kazakhs despite immigration to Russia since 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union.

The region also still has a large presence of Volga Germans that were deported from Saratov region, however many have also left for Germany.

It's right on the border with Russia in Siberia, in case of a war crossing it would take less effort than Ukrainian border as it's very lightly protected by a few border posts.

Russia would size all of North Kazakhstan with a population of around 550,000 of which only 200,000 are ethnic Kazakhs.

Potentially Karaganda Region in Central Kazakhstan, country's largest region, major center for coal mining with 1,350,000 population.

Despite seemingly good relations between Russian and Kazakh leaderships there are no signs of local authorities cracking down on nationalists which could very well lead the country on the same path as Ukraine.

Same as with Euromaidan in Ukraine a major event could lead to unpredictable consequences.

Just a month before the invasion of Ukraine in January 2022 there was unrest in Kazakhstan, 5 members of Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) headed by Russia dispatched peacekeeping forces to the country.

Kazakhstan is second in terms of uranium resources after Australia but ranks first in uranium production.

Kazakhstan has huge amount of natural resources, such for example as chromite or uranium, some of the largest reserves in the world.

The country is third in the world in terms of titanium production, seventh for zinc, eighth for lead and eleventh for gold.

A conflict here could be a welcome challenge for Russia.

The region is much more important that highly touted potential new conflicts in Moldova or Georgia.

If the country allows itself to become a pawn in geopolitical games against Russia while being devoured from inside by nationalism the prospect of a conflict could be very high.

The country will need serious leadership that understands these risks.

As cynical as it is Russian leadership doesn't mind Kazakh nationalists oppressing Russians, Ukrainians or Germans in the country.

Plenty of videos on Kazakh social media accounts then making their way for people in Russia to see.

Why?

It will be easy to exploit if the country takes too much of a sharp turn torwards the US/UK and against Russia.

That will be up to local authorities to crack down on it for own benefit and safety as not to get a joint Russia-China special military operation in the future with the two splitting Kazakhstan in half.