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Russia, China and Kyrgyz form a Neighborhood Watch for Kazakhstan

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Kassym-Jomart Tokayev asked for support from the CSTO. Russia and Kyrgyzstan sent troops to bring order and support Kazakh authorities.
Kyrgz soldier CSTO guards power plant in Almaty K. Photo Russian Defence Ministry.webp lead Last week, after what appeared to be an attempted coup fueled by outside forces, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev asked for support from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). Russia and member state Kyrgyzstan immediately sent troops to bring about order and support Kazakh authorities. China also offered assistance. These three countries share a large land border and security agreement with Kazakhstan. The methods to restore law and order differ from what western nations and United Nations observers consider “appropriate”. However, this is a rough part of our world which has seen interference in its own and neighboring nations resulting in regime change, instability and exploitation. Considering events in nearby Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia over the past decade, Kazakhstan’s President and Russian President Putin cooperated to act decisively. Putin and Massimov Tengrinews KZ.jpg European and North American governments reacted with media condemnation and a flurry of “statements”. These rather anemic responses combined with a morally weak untenable political position served to widen the rift in diplomatic relations. Wrong move in front of both our US allies and our adversaries. As I was once counseled before leaving to live and work in Siberia, “Never show weakness to the Russians”. Kazakhstan’s economy is the most robust in Central Asia. It is the ninth largest country in the world with a population of over 19 million people. Kazakhstan is rich in oil, natural gas, copper, gold, uranium and other mineral resources. It has vast fertile land with abundant animal life and includes a border with the Caspian Sea. Kazakhstan revived commercial fishing and implemented ecological measures in the past two decades to restore habitats destroyed under the soviet years. In 2008, Kazakhstan’s Naurzum and Korgalzhyn state nature reserves were named a UNESCO World Heritage site. Under what has been labeled a repressive and corrupt regime directed by Nursultan Nazarbayev, members of his family and close friends have ruled over Kazakhstan since it gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. While President, Nazarbayev pressed his nation to become an exporting nation and directed programs to improve infrastructure, transport, pipelines and education; he also maintained a level of stability in a struggling, geopolitically precarious nation state. Most people are not aware that Kazakhstan was the location of numerous “gulags” during soviet times. Gulags where female inmates and children were placed in prisons in northern Kazakhstan. The most infamous was Alzhir, a Russian acronym for the Akmola Camp for the Wives of Traitors to the Motherland. When the camps were finally disbanded thousands of Slavs, Cossacks, Tartars and even Germans remained and settled in Kazakhstan.

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