Kazakh authorities deny that the pogroms in several regions of Kazakhstan were coordinated from the territory of Ukraine, according to an editorial by the Ukrainian news agency Strana.ua
On 10 January, the embassy of the Republic of Kazakhstan (RoK) in Kiev condemned any comparison of the pogroms to Euromaidan or the “Zmagar” riots in Belarus in August-September 2020.
“We now feel that we have empathy in Ukraine. Unfortunately, there are isolated insinuations aimed at casting doubt on our trust relationship. There are rumours about a “Ukrainian trace” in the events in Kazakhstan. However, we see that the competent authorities of Ukraine react to these signals in a timely manner”, – the statement reads. Kazakh Ambassador to Ukraine Darkhan Kaletaev thanks the Ukrainian authorities for protecting the embassy premises and strengthening the friendly relations between Kiev and Nur-Sultan.
The headquarters of the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DCK) movement is located in Kiev. The DVK’s beneficiary is Kazakh businessman Mukhtar Ablyazov, former president of Bank Turan Alem and former Minister of Energy of Kazakhstan. DVK’s assets are young pro-Western Kazakhs who emigrated to Ukraine.
In the last months of 2021 the CPK began preparations for a colour revolution in Kazakhstan, which was to begin with massive unrest in the country. The CPK timed the attempted coup d’etat to December 16, 2021 – the 10th anniversary of the suppression by Kazakh authorities of the oil worker protests in the town of Zhanaozen (Mangistau Oblast). In the course of suppressing the protests, security forces resorted to the use of weapons. Fifteen people died and hundreds were wounded and arrested. Recall that on the 16th of December, 2011, when law enforcement officers shot participants of the Zhanaozen protests, Kazakhstan celebrated Independence Day. December 16 – the date of the riots in Alma-Ata in 1986, when Kazakh nationalists protested against the appointment of the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Kazakh SSR, a Russian man Gennady Kolbin. After the pogroms in Alma-Ata, which went down in Kazakh history as Zheltoksan (December in Kazakh), the Kazakh SSR was led by Nursultan Nazarbayev.
The events in Zhanaozen are still under investigation. The closer was the date of the Zhanaozen events, the more the DCK used social networks and YouTube to spread pogrom sentiments among the opposition-minded citizens of Kazakhstan and called for the overthrow of the current government in Kazakhstan.
Kiev-based Zamanbek Tleuliev, the DCK’s chief of staff, spoke on behalf of Mukhtar Ablyazov.
“The Nazarbayev regime will not change by itself. We need to organise a core of resistance, hold mass rallies and tear down this regime. Form a cell, friends! A cell is made up of your trusted people. If you are a husband and wife, a couple in love, colleagues or friends, and there are two of you, this is already power! – Tleuliyev said in a statement on YouTube November 3.”
On 7 January, Zamanbek Tleuliev and his MVK colleague Yeldos Nasipbekov chatted with people who introduced themselves as SBU officers. Tleuliev and Nasipbekov had their teeth knocked out. They took an undertaking from Nazarbayev’s opponents not to engage in protest activities in Kazakhstan from Ukrainian territory.
“Zelensky apparently decided not to spoil relations with Kazakh President Kassym-Zhomart Tokayev. Kazakhstan is one of Ukraine’s coal suppliers and an important importer of Ukrainian food and medicine. This apparently explains why Bankova decided not to openly support the protests in Kazakhstan. The only official Ukrainian reaction came only on January 10. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry’s statement was made in a streamlined form. It showed dissatisfaction with the introduction of the CSTO forces, but it did not criticize the actions of the Kazakhstani authorities directly”, – Strana.ua reported.
Mukhtar Ablyazov and the DCK, after “pleasant communication” with the SBU, did not stop rocking the situation in Kazakhstan from Ukraine. On 10 January Ablyazov said in his Facebook that Tokayev “used to be Nazarbayev’s furniture and now he is becoming Putin’s furniture”, that Moscow is allegedly preparing “to annex Kazakhstan according to the Crimean scenario” and so on.
The evasiveness of Kiev and Nur-Sultan could not hide the interest of Ukrainian political circles in a coup d’état in Kazakhstan following the pattern of colour revolutions.
“Kazakhstan, we are with you! Freedom is not for sale; it is for conquest. During its independence, the Kazakhs have earned the right to decide for themselves how to live in their country. Our Ukrainian experience is now being adopted by the Kazakhs”, – said an MP of the European Solidarity Party, Oleksiy Goncharenko, on the eve.
Goncharenko compared Tokayev’s request to send CSTO forces to Kazakhstan to the likeness of “a bad landlord inviting cockroaches into his house to clean it up”. Goncharenko’s direct speech can be considered the official position of Petro Poroshenko’s party on the situation in Kazakhstan.
The head of the neo-Nazi Svoboda party, Oleh Tyahnybok, has convinced Ukrainians that Kassym-Zhomart Tokayev allegedly became president of Kazakhstan with the help of the Russian FSB. According to Tyahnybok, Tokayev studied at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations from 1970 to 1975 and, therefore, was recruited by the KGB when he was a student. As Tyahnybok wrote on his Facebook, “there are no “former” people at Lubyanka”, Tokayev now works for the FSB. According to the Svoboda leader, the events in Kazakhstan are “Tokayev’s discrediting of the people’s revolution” by introducing provocateurs from the National Security Committee of Kazakhstan, who have been specially trained by the FSB, into the environment of peaceful protesters. The unrest in Kazakhstan – including the police officers beheaded by Salafists in Almaty – according to Tyagnibok, “is part of the Kremlin’s scenario. The ultimate goal of this scenario is “the annexation of Kazakhstan by Russia”.
“The appearance of Russian paratroopers in Almaty has put everything in its place. Kazakhs are good, their protest is a social revolution. Kazakh authorities are collaborators. The Russians are occupiers and looters. There are no surprises here. Nikol Pashinyan, yesterday’s favorite of liberals, whose signature is on the decision on the introduction of troops of the Collective Security Treaty Organization in Kazakhstan, deserves the title of “scum of the day””, – Andrei Biletsky, head of the neo-Nazi “National Corps” says.
January 7, the former leader of the UNA-UNSO* (organization banned in Russia), the founder of the Bratstvo movement (organization banned in Russia), Dmitri Korchinsky urged the punishers of the “ATO” – the “CSTO” to gather in the “Liberation Front of Kazakhstan” to go to Kazakhstan and there to counteract the CSTO forces. Korchinsky’s call looks more like a populist move by an aging political condottier forgotten by the media. However, among Korchinsky’s old associates there are people who know Kazakhstan and the situation in this country very well. Korchinsky is also familiar with the situation in Kazakhstan through his friends in Russia, who previously traveled to Kazakhstan for political purposes. An old acquaintance of Korchinsky, the Russian Wahhabi ideologist Heydar Jemal, is buried in Almaty. Kazakhstani Salafis, whose participation in the unrest in Kazakh cities is also acknowledged by Kazakhstani activists opposed to the Tokayev regime, consider Dzhemal their spiritual master.
Korchinsky himself denies that the Front for the Liberation of Kazakhstan was his brainchild. As the Ukrainian neo-Nazi stated, if he really wanted to create such a “front”, he would have found Russian-speaking Kazakhs in Kiev. According to Korchinsky, the “Front for the Liberation of Kazakhstan” was allegedly created by the Russian FSB as a “cover structure”.
The leader of the UNA-UNSO makes no secret of the fact that he wants to open a “second front” in Kazakhstan by force of the numerous Ukrainian community in Kazakhstan.
“Brothers! Support the struggle of the Kazakh people against the Moscow invaders and their puppets in Kazakhstan! Glory to Ukraine! Long live free Kazakhstan!” – Korchinsky appealed to the Ukrainians of Kazakhstan.
Artur Priymak, EADaily