Russia readies scores of transports as troops pour Into Kazakhstan
Moscow says it has prepared more than 75 aircraft for deployment of forces to help Kazakh leadership reassert control.
Russia sent fresh reinforcements into Kazakhstan on Sunday, deploying troops to help authorities reassert control in the country’s biggest cities following days of sometimes violent protests against its leadership.
The Russian Defence Ministry said it had prepared a contingent of more than 75 transport planes to allow for continuous deployment of troops into the country. The number sent in would probably be about 2500, but could go higher, Russian state news agency RIA said last week.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was set to talk to his Kazakh counterpart, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, on Monday night about the situation in Kazakhstan, the Kremlin said.
The protests, which started off as rallies against rising fuel prices, snowballed over the past week into a deadly standoff between government forces and armed demonstrators, some of whom looted banks and stores. More than 160 people have died in violence around the protests, including more than 100 in the country’s biggest city of Almaty. Almaty residents said on Sunday that television and radio broadcasts were working and that gunshots had not been heard in the city since Saturday evening.
Russian forces entered the country last week after Kazakh authorities requested help from a Moscow-led security bloc that includes several former Soviet republics. Russians make up the vast bulk of the deployment.
The Russian paratrooper units “deployed to the Almaty airfield and travelled in convoys to the destination of their mission … (and) moved to secure critical and civilian infrastructure,” the Russian Defence Ministry said.
The mission is the first for the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, the ex-Soviet Union’s answer to NATO, and shows the extent to which Mr Putin has leveraged his military modernisation over the past decade into a diplomatic tool to maintain influence over the former Soviet space. Other heads of the CSTO will participate in Monday’s call between Mr Putin and Mr Tokayev.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Sunday Mr Putin sought to re-establish a sphere of influence over former Soviet countries, an effort the US deemed “unacceptable”.
Mr Blinken told CNN the US had sought clarification on why the Kazakh government had summoned Russian-led CSTO troops when “authorities in Kazakhstan should be able to deal with the challenges that they’re facing peacefully, to make sure that the rights of those who are protesting peacefully are protected, to protect the institutions of the state and law and order, but to do it in a way that is rights-respecting”.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman dismissed the secretary’s concerns as “baby talk” without any basis.
Video footage distributed by the Russian Defence Ministry on Sunday showed troops loading armoured personnel carriers and military transport vehicles onto planes in Moscow and landing at airfields near Almaty, where they deployed onward or carried out tactical military exercises with their Kazakh counterparts at the airport, the Defence Ministry said.
On Sunday, the Russian commanding officer of the CSTO’s peacekeeping contingent said the Russian military had organised flights to transport Russian citizens in Almaty back to the country and that CSTO forces were already carrying out their mission.
“Collective peacekeeping units will continue carrying out their mission until the situation has fully stabilised in the country,” said Colonel General Andrey Serdyukov at a briefing with Kazakh Deputy Defence Minister Sultan Kamaletdinov.
Lieutenant General Kamaletdinov said the troops’ presence was helping Kazakh forces redeploy to finish off what authorities there call an anti-terrorism operation. The authoritarian leaders of Central Asia’s former Soviet republics have used the term “terrorist” to describe protesters of various stripes.
Following the protests, Kazakh law enforcement officers detained nearly 6000 people across the country.
“Tokayev has underscored that all necessary measures will be taken by security services in order to restore order and safety in the country,” the President’s office said.
The Wall Street Journal
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