"Kazakhs have never had statehood", or why Putin is going to Kazakhstan

Exclusive. On November 27-28, the Russian dictator will visit Kazakhstan on a state visit, and will also take part in the regular session of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Council in Astana.

Dictator Putin and President of Kazakhstan Kasym-Jomart Tokaev

This is Putin's second visit to Kazakhstan within a year. The last time he visited Astana was in July to participate in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit. Tempted by the rising inflation, Putin once again aspires to Kazakhstan in the role of a supplicant, but this is a guest with poisoned fingers, whose presence will once again cast a shadow on Kazakhstan both in the eyes of Washington and Brussels and Beijing.

Such visits are necessary for the Kremlin to create the illusion that Russia is supposedly not in international isolation, and Putin is not afraid of arrest on the warrant of the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

In addition, the Kremlin admitted that the dictator is canceling foreign visits due to the refusal of other countries to fuel his plane. Problems with the refueling of the presidential plane abroad may be the reason for Russian President Vladimir Putin's refusal to visit another country, said the press secretary of the Russian President, Dmitry Peskov. "Of course, the visits of the head of state are processed in the most thorough manner, all the necessary guarantees are obtained. In case of questions, of course, this can be a reason for making contacts at another level," complained the representative of the Kremlin. By the way, Kazakhstan airlines today serve a number of domestic Russian airlines, as half of the fleet of Russian airlines is hopelessly out of order.

"During the state visit, negotiations will take place with the President of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokaev. It is planned to discuss issues of further development of Russian-Kazakhstan relations of strategic partnership and alliance in various areas, including taking into account Kazakhstan's chairmanship this year in the CSTO, and Russia in the Commonwealth of Independent States and BRICS, the Kremlin informed. "Following the negotiations, a joint statement by the heads of state will be signed, as well as a number of intergovernmental, interagency, and commercial documents."

It is also reported that Putin and Tokaev will address the participants of the plenary session of the 20th Forum of Interregional Cooperation of Russia and Kazakhstan, which will be held in Ufa, via video conference.

The press service of the President of the Russian Federation noted that "at the meeting of the Security Council of the CSTO, the results of cooperation within the framework of the organization this year will be summarized, the main directions of further improvement of the collective security system will be determined", and an exchange of views on current international and regional topics will also take place. Russia only has to exchange opinions, because CSTO Secretary General Imangaly Tasmagambetov said that the Russian Federation did not ask for help from the organization due to strikes by ATACMS long-range missiles on Russian territory, although among the declared goals of the organization is the collective defense of independence and territorial integrity and sovereignty of member states. According to Tasmagambetov, the topic of strikes is not included in the agenda of the upcoming meeting of the CSTO. "Within the framework of the Treaty on Collective Security, assistance, including military aid, is provided upon request, at the request of the participating state itself. As you know, this provision of the contract has already been applied in practice. At the moment, such a request has not been received from Russia," said the Secretary General of the CSTO.

The CSTO is an unsuccessful attempt by Moscow to create a so-called alternative to NATO. Azerbaijan and Georgia left the organization in 1999, and Uzbekistan in 2012. Formally, the CSTO includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan, but discord and confusion reign in a number of member countries.

In mid-June, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced his intention to leave the CSTO. Speaking in the parliament, he clarified that Yerevan will do this when it deems it necessary. In February, the prime minister spoke about freezing membership in the organization, and in early May, the Armenian authorities announced that they would stop financing it.

In September 2023, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan had to comment on rumors about plans to leave the CSTO. "Information is spreading that Kazakhstan and Armenia are allegedly negotiating to leave the CSTO. This, most likely, does not correspond to reality. Just a few days ago, the ministers of foreign affairs of the CSTO member countries held a meeting where further ways of development of the organization were discussed," said the official representative of the Kazakh Foreign Ministry, Aibek Smadiyarov.

Astana's fears are understandable, because Moscow does not abandon its imperial ambitions regarding increasing influence on Kazakhstan. In January 2022, Russian troops conducted a "rehearsal" intervention in Kazakhstan under the guise of a CSTO peacekeeping mission and may repeat it. To this end, propaganda supports the degree of hatred towards Kazakhstan, promoting the narrative, including that it is an "artificial state" in which Nazism is "justified".

"I am familiar with the Asian mentality, and, unfortunately, in Asia, only the language of power is well understood. This power does not necessarily have to be manifested, but the possibility of application must be demonstrated. The weak are not respected. Russia's allies, as Alexander III said, remain its army and navy, unfortunately we have no other true allies," said the so-called former "chairman of the Council of Ministers of the DPR" and current State Duma deputy Alexander Borodai in December 2021. He added that he sees certain similarities between modern Kazakhstan and Ukraine of the XNUMXs. "This is both the widespread abolition of the Russian language and the manifestation of more and more elements of Kazakh nationalism and ethnocracy. All this, to put it mildly, is alarming," the separatist said. And a year earlier, the speaking heads in the State Duma declared that the current territories of Kazakhstan were "gifted" by Russia, which sounded in unison with the words of the dictator Putin that "Kazakhs never had statehood" before the collapse of the Soviet Union. For the time being, the stateless Kazakhs are transporting more and more of their oil along the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline route, which bypasses the territory of the Russian Federation, and Kazakh banks are increasingly integrating their rules for working with Russian legal entities and individuals into the international sanctions regime.

If Russia wins, Kazakhstan will be next in line, followed by other post-Soviet countries, which will be returned to the "prison of nations." Dictator Putin considers the collapse of the USSR a "tragedy", "the collapse of historical Russia", and considers himself a land collector.

Vera Perovskaya