In 2024, new conflicts may occur in the Middle East and Central Asia, says Vladimir Prokhvatilov, a military analyst at the Russian Academy of Military Sciences. He believes that the West may be planning a coup in Kazakhstan. “I am concerned about the situation in Central Asia, where the United States and Great Britain have become more active in all directions and are trying to tear Kazakhstan away from Russia. I don’t rule out that the West may try to repeat the January 2022 coup,” Prokhvatilov said, as reported by Ura.ru.
In January 2022, mass protests took place in Kazakhstan, when residents of the cities of Zhanaozen and Aktau in the west of the country opposed a sharp increase in the price for liquefied gas. The protests later spread to other cities, including Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan. On January 3, 2022 Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev named unresolved socio-economic problems as the reasons for the riots and the attempted coup in the country in 2022.
In an article published by zerkalo.az, Rauf Orujev reflects on how likely it is that Western forces may be preparing some kind of putsch in Kazakhstan with the intention of alienating this country from Moscow. The author asked experts to comment on this allegation.
Professor of econometrics, a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, an expert with the Foundation for Parliamentarism of Kazakhstan, Nurlan Munbaev says that the answer to this question depends on many factors, including the political situation in Kazakhstan and in the world, the level of development of democracy and civil society in the country, Kazakhstan’s relations with Russia and other countries, as well as internal and external security threats.
Kazakhstan is an important partner of Russia in the Central Asian region, as well as a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). This means that Kazakhstan has close economic, political and military ties with Russia that cannot be easily broken or changed, Munbaev says.
He went on saying that Kazakhstan is pursuing an active multi-vector foreign policy, which is aimed at establishing good neighborly and mutually beneficial relations with all countries, including the West. Kazakhstan participates in various international initiatives and organizations, such as the UN, OSCE, OIC, SCO, and CIS. Kazakhstan is also a strategic partner of the United States and the EU in the region, cooperating with them in the fight against terrorism, extremism, drug trafficking, and nuclear security.
Also, in recent years Kazakhstan has been carrying out a number of political reforms aimed at modernizing and democratizing public administration, strengthening parliamentarism and a multi-party system, expanding the rights and freedoms of citizens, and improving the judicial and law enforcement systems. The President of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has initiated a large-scale program of political reforms, which received the support of the majority of Kazakhstanis.
With the above in mind, Munbaev concludes, we can say that Kazakhstan is a stable and reliable country that strives for development and cooperation with all partners, including Russia and the West. “The likelihood that Western forces are preparing some kind of putsch in Kazakhstan with the intention of alienating this country from Moscow seems low to me, since this is contrary to the interests and will of the Kazakh people, and also violates international law and the sovereignty of Kazakhstan”.
The Director of the representative office of the Free Russia Foundation in the South Caucasus (Tbilisi), political scientist Egor Kuroptev believes that it is important for the Kremlin to stir up aggression and anxiety within Russia, to name more and more enemies, because the people of Russia, according to the polls, want peace, regardless of the results of the war [in Ukraine]. The wives of the mobilized Russian soldiers, the soldiers themselves, who went to a war that was unnecessary to anyone except Putin, all Russians expect peace from the authorities, but the authorities are not yet ready to give it, so they are trying to return fear to Russia, increase hatred and anxiety, in order to continue to wage the war to a result that would suit the Kremlin — freezing the conflict or signing a peace agreement [with Ukraine].
“It is clear that, unfortunately, no West interferes in any affairs of Kazakhstan or other countries, no matter how much the people of many countries living under dictatorship would like it. The West is democratic in order to promote democracy, and not violence or interference in the internal affairs of countries that do not ask for it. The West is accountable to voters and cannot do anything that could undermine the support of its people. All we see from the Kremlin are the standard tools of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation that Moscow uses to maintain its status and its power,” Kuroptev concludes.
