“No one could have predicted such a scenario in this country which was nevertheless a haven of peace since its independence in 1991”, explained Thursday, January 6 on franceinfo Michaël Levystone, researcher at the Russia / New Independent States Center of Ifri, the French Institute of International Relations, after the riots that broke out in Kazakhstan on Tuesday and which left dozens of dead and a thousand wounded, according to reports given by the police.
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franceinfo: For what reasons the riots broke out in this country, which seemed rather stable and solid?
Kazakhstan is a country very dependent on its oil and gas rent, and I think that the various crises, the sanctions introduced against Russia by the Europeans since 2014, and especially the coronavirus crisis for two years, have nevertheless caused a lot of damage. hurt this country. When you budget from a scenario of one barrel at 80 dollars, and you end up with a barrel at 20 dollars, inevitably, the cash flow is not at all the same. There is indeed a very strong economic dimension to the events we are experiencing today.
Are there not behind these protest movements, as in other countries of the region, democratic demands?
Obviously, yes, but the scenes that we have witnessed in Kazakhstan for 72 hours are more scenes that we used to see in Kyrgyzstan. These are not scenes that we have seen in Uzbekistan, in Tajikistan, not to mention Turkmenistan, which is an even more authoritarian regime than Kazakhstan can be.
You name all these countries, but probably for Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the most strategic and the most important is Kazakhstan.
It is the country with which Russia shares a very long land border, approximately 7,000 km. It is a leading country in regional integration. All the organizations that Moscow has set up in this region since the fall of the USSR in 1991, whether it is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Collective Security Treaty Organization or the Eurasian Economic Union, have all been possible thanks to Kazakhstan, member state and founder of these organizations.
“It is a country with which Moscow has important economic relations in Central Asia, its largest trading partner.”
Michaël Levystone, researcher at the French Institute of International Relationsto franceinfo
There are links that are very strong, very intertwined, with a strong Russian minority all over northern Kazakhstan, which represents one fifth of the total population of Kazakhstan. So the links are strong between the two countries.
Does this mean that Vladimir Putin is seeking to restore order?
Yes, the goal for Putin is to prevent the disorder from continuing on its borders, as it could have been the case elsewhere in Belarus. The logic is a bit the same. Show that Moscow does not tolerate that, in its strategic space, disorder persists and that we can attend scenes of chaos.
Nevertheless, at the borders of this empire, the sparks light up everywhere …
A certain number of protest movements are starting to spread. We used to see these scenes of very violent popular protest in Kyrgyzstan, which we had seen on several occasions, in 2005, 2010 and 2020. Belarus has shown that there was really a shift in the economy. whole of this region. We see that now, it can happen anywhere. For Kazakhstan, a few days ago, no one could have predicted such a scenario in this country which was nevertheless a haven of peace since its independence in 1991.