Vliadimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine has put pressure on the leadership of neighbouring Kazakhstan, which only two months ago hosted Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) troops on its soil. The country’s president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, turned to Putin for military help in January when his rivals hijacked peaceful protests on fuel price hikes to organise attacks on government buildings.
As Putin promptly obliged, it was the first time in the alliance’s history that CSTO peacekeeping forces have been deployed. The 2,000-plus troops were in Kazakhstan for about two weeks before being redeployed. Many of them will now be in Ukraine.
And in the absence of military backing from Moscow, Tokayev is having to walk a delicate path between maintaining Kazakhstan’s “multivectoral” foreign policy, which favours partnerships with Russia, China, the west, and the Muslim world, his dependence on Moscow’s support, and the need to respond to growing anger among his own people at the war in Ukraine and their fear that they might be Russia’s next target.
