PSCRP-BESA Reports No 58 (May 17, 2024)
Kazakhstan, now an independent state and formerly one of the republics of the USSR, has the longest land border with Russia. It stretches for 7,600 kilometers, a significant distance that necessitates Kazakhstan’s constant balancing act in Russian-Kazakh relations. The war in Ukraine temporarily weakened Russian influence in Central Asia, but now things are returning to their previous state.
In April 2024 the former senior Soviet official told to Japanese magazine Nikkei Asia that ”Putin is quietly pressuring Central Asia and others within the Russian orbit to prioritize ties with Moscow”. He also added that Putin can “destabilize these countries by meddling in their domestic and social affairs”.
The Eurasia review quotes an American investigative journalist, a specialist on Russia Casey Michel, who noted that “there were four regions Moscow eyed for potential border revision. In the first, Georgia’s Abkhazia region, Russia invaded in 2008. The second and third – Ukraine’s Crimea and Donbas regions – Russia invaded in 2014. The fourth is the only region Russia hasn’t yet seized: northern Kazakhstan”.
That might still happen, because Russian official rhetoric not only suggests this as quite a real possibility, but directly states that, for example, Kazakhstan’s statehood is a “gift” from Russia since “Kazakhs had never had statehood”. This declaration was made by none other than Russia’s President himself in 2014. He also added that Kazakhstan must remain within the Russian world, which is part of the “global civilization”.
And it looks like Russia is already making steps towards making prep work for destabilisation already. At the end of 2023, Putin signed an executive order to simplify the procedure for granting Russian citizenship to citizens of Belarus, Moldova and Kazakhstan. After that Russia announced the opening of a general consulate in Aktau (the Mangystau province of Western Kazakhstan). There are already four of Russia’s general consulates in Kazakhstan: in Astana (Northern Kazakhstan), Almaty (Southern Kazakhstan), Oskemen (Eastern Kazakhstan), and in Oral (Western Kazakhstan). Does Russia really need a fifth general consulate in Kazakhstan or the main reason for its opening would be the high level of protest potential in the Mangystau province and, consequently, the better options for sowing the civil unrest if the need arises?
The need (as Russia sees it) could arise at any moment. About 20% of the population of Kazakhstan is ethnically Russian. During his visit in November 2023, Putin called Kazakhstan and Russia “the closest allies”, which isn’t a compliment, but a barely veiled threat.
Bulat Sultanov, the director of the Research Institute for International and Regional Cooperation at the Kazakh-German University, spoke at the 4th Central Asian Conference of the Valdai International Discussion Club. He declared that he agrees with the opinion of the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs that “the leaders of the collective West, who visit Kazakhstan, do not hide that one of their main goals is to push Russia out of the region, to get the Central Asian countries to join the anti-Russian sanctions, and to create an ‘Anti-Russia’ here similar to Ukraine. In other words, Kazakhstan, which borders Russia and China, should become not a bridge but a wall,” said Sultanov. According to him, it is the West that is promoting nationalism and the ideology of pan-Turkism in Kazakhstan.
According to Alex Petriashvili, former Georgian state minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration, the defining moment of the future fate of quite a few former Soviet republics depends on the result of the Russia-Ukraine war: “If Russia wins in Ukraine, it will no doubt seek to extend its dominance to other former Soviet blocs by political and military means. The first likely targets will be the fragile states of Moldova and Georgia. Putin will also try to regain control over Central Asia and the entire South Caucasus.”
As the Russian offensive is gaining momentum and Western countries are stalling supplies of weaponry, Kazakhstan today has to measure its moves carefully, and take into consideration that Russia’s chagrin can be provoked by more or less anything, including rumours that have nothing to do with the real situation in the country. Astana must therefore make various economic and political concessions to Russia.
In April 2024, the government of Kazakhstan announced its intention to conclude an agreement with the Russian government regarding border crossing points along the Kazakh-Russian state border.
On May 9th Kazakhstan’s Ambassador to Russia, Dauren Abayev, had to refute media reports about alleged contacts between Astana and Kyiv in the defense sector in an interview with TASS. He also had to debunk the myth of Russophobia in Kazakhstan, highlighting that Moscow and Astana are allies, with mutual understanding firmly established at the highest political level. A day after that interview, the administration of the President of Kazakhstan had to issue a statement: “There are forces in Kazakhstan that are attempting to provoke and politicize the language issue… They are engaging in blatant provocations, creating a threat to the country.”
To pacify Russia further, Kazakhstan’s President Tokaev had to participate in the Victory Day parade on May 9th together with only five more leaders of former Soviet republics. Additionally, Roscosmos is demanding that Kazakhstan extend Proton rocket launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome beyond 2025. The fuel for Proton rockets contains highly toxic components. Kazakhstan has been compelled to agree to check Uzbek citizens arriving in the country for offences committed in Russia. Russian Gazprom has secured the right to supply gas to Uzbekistan through Kazakh territory, gas that previously went to the EU.
The problem is that Western countries provide Kazakhstan with almost no support or alternatives. For example, one of the most active countries in the region, Germany, has historically strong ties with Kazakhstan. Berlin considers Kazakhstan a “central state,” a key country in Germany’s Central Asia strategy, and praises its “multi-vector foreign policy.”
Berlin is one of Astana’s important partners, having invested approximately $5.3 billion in Kazakhstan since 2005. Moreover, Kazakhstan is an important partner for Germany in the energy resources sector. Germany’s trade volume with Kazakhstan constitutes 85% of its total trade with Central Asian countries.
However, the major energy projects between the two countries depend on Russia. For instance, from January to April 2024, Kazakhstan supplied Germany with 420,000 tons of oil, 4.7 times more than in the same period last year. But the transit goes through Russian territory.
What could be the alternative? The Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (the Middle Corridor), which is an international transport corridor that runs through China, Kazakhstan, the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and onward to European countries.
The idea of developing the Middle Corridor has been circulating since 2013, but it has been stalled for a number of reasons, most of which are connected to Russian meddling in the process. Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine and sanctions against Russia it was supposed to become the project of the century, but it moves at a snail’s pace. Only a few days ago the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to develop the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route. It will take years to develop it to the capacity that can give Kazakhstan a decent way out from under the Russian pressure.
PSCRP team