Though thousands of kilometres away from the front-line in Ukraine, the consequences of Vladimir Putin's deadly war are being sharply felt in Kazakhstan.
Nestled in the foothills of the Trans-Ili Alatau mountains, locals in the sprawling metropolis of Almaty will tell you there has been a noticeable shift since September 24.
There are more Russian visitors at train stations, on city streets and inside the city's cosy cafes.
After Putin declared a "partial mobilisation" in an attempt to get his disastrous war back on track, more than 200,000 Russians packed up their bags and descended on Kazakhstan.
The sudden influx caught many small communities by surprise.
Hotels, hostels and Airbnb apartments quickly sold out within days, sending prices for remaining accommodation skyrocketing and forcing new arrivals to find emergency lodging in schools, cinemas and gyms.
Locals like Gaukhar Dossova have watched the unexpected series of developments play out in their hometown with a mixture of surprise and perplexity.
"Almaty is a great place to visit and enjoy the impressive nature around it but normally people do not immigrate here," the tour guide tells the ABC.
Kazakhstan used to be a disembarkation point for Central Asian workers, enticed by Russia's higher wages and work opportunities.
But, just like with so much else, the invasion of Ukraine has ushered in a new reality.
Some migrants who left for Moscow and St Petersburg have made their way back and now Kazakh cities are grappling with how to adequately look after the deluge of people fleeing to their towns.
Many have welcomed the new arrivals, starting grassroots organisations and Telegram forums to provide advice and assistance.
But the influx has also ignited tensions between the two countries, as economic pressures mount and memories of an unresolved colonial past resurface.
As these dynamics play out locally, the consequences of Moscow's war are also rupturing fault lines at the geopolitical level.
With Putin's forces in trouble in Ukraine, the Kremlin's ability to exert influence over post-Soviet states is being put to the test, driving some allies to seek other powerful relationships in the region.
Russians flock to the church only to be turned away
Putin's war in Ukraine is having very real consequences for millions of people.
Nearly one-third of Ukraine's population has been displaced since the invasion began, and some 4.2 million Ukrainian refugees have registered for the European Union's temporary protection scheme or other national programs.
Russia's partial mobilisation order last month has also sent hundreds of thousands of its own citizens fleeing, including people like Dima Poltavets.
On a grey October morning following a religious service in Almaty, Dima lingers outside, recalling his escape from Yaroslavl, a city 250 kilometres north-east of Moscow.
After flying to the capital, he embarked on a 3,000-kilometre journey that would take him from Barnaul in Siberia to the eastern Kazakh city of Oskemen and then to Almaty, where he has now settled.
He says he turned to his church friends to help him find refuge abroad when his life was turned upside down.
"I am living in a flat provided to me for free by my fellow churchgoers and have now found a job as an event organiser and am waiting for my wife to join me," the 26-year-old told the ABC.
Kazakhstan and Georgia both offer visa-free entry to Russian nationals, and are popular destinations for those fleeing the draft.
Volunteers and churches have acted as important lifelines for these exiles, sometimes providing a soft landing as they contemplate their next steps.
Unlike many fringe Protestant churches, however, Kazakhstan's main Christian denomination – the Russian Orthodox Church – has not provided shelter or food to Russian refugees, draft escapees told the ABC.
The head of the church, Patriach Kirill, is an ally of Putin and shortly after the partial mobilisation, he said Russians who die in the war in Ukraine will be cleansed of their sins.
Seventy per cent of Kazakhstan's population is nominally Muslim and mosques offered accommodation if the requesters were of that faith.
"Church is a place of help. Young men had nowhere to go and we offered them shelter and food," Vasiliy Kim, the administrator at the New Life church, told the ABC after a crowded Sunday service.
"The church has bought bunk beds but churchgoers have brought mattresses, blankets, beddings and food [so] we could offer a temporary home to them."
Bakhtiyar, whose last name has not been included, has also leaned on the church for support since arriving in Kazakhstan.
The ethnic Kazakh man does not support the war but couldn't leave his family in Kalingrad when it started.
"But when I faced a choice of supporting my family from afar or dying in Ukraine, I chose to flee Russia," he said of Putin's partial mobilisation order.
He spent five days in a shelter provided by a Protestant church in the border town of Kostanay before coming to Almaty by train.
Speaking in a tiny room stacked with three bunk beds along the walls inside the New Life's guest house, Bakhtiyar says as an IT specialist he could bring his work with him to Kazakhstan but he had no savings to afford accommodation in Almaty.
It's a situation many other Russians are struggling with, either because they left without much money or are unable to access it overseas due to sanctions on credit cards and Russian banks.
Since arriving, hundreds have stood in long queues outside Almaty's town centre to register in Kazakhstan's national ID system, a requirement for getting a job or a bank account.
About 200,000 foreigners have received a taxpayer number in Kazakhstan since September 21, Deputy Digital Development Minister Aset Tursynov said this week.
Skyrocketing rents spark tensions in cities
The arrival of thousands of Russians in such a short period of time has also strained housing markets in some cities, prompting landlords to raise rents against a backdrop of rampant inflation.
Dariga Zhakupova rents in Almaty with her husband and two kids, but said she was warned that her rent would go up after Russia's partial mobilisation.
Her landlady agreed to limit the rent increase to about $US100 (more than $156), but only if Dariga repairs and decorates the flat by the end of January.
"My husband and I just need to try to earn more to cover for the increase," Dariga said, acknowledging this was the reality now.
"She said she could rent it out for $US1,300 to Russians, so we just agreed to her conditions."
Not only are Kazakh tenants falling victim to rising prices, but so are Russians who arrived in Kazakhstan as part of the first exodus in February.
Petr Andreev, a 51-year-old Muscovite who helps people with special needs, says that his rent went up by 50 per cent to $US420 for a tiny 19-square-metre studio in central Almaty.
Realising this may pose a potential social problem, Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev described the situation of fleeing Russians as "hopeless" and said Kazakhs "need to show care of them and ensure their safety".
Many have taken up the cause, including offering advice to those fleeing in a Relocation to Kazakhstan Telegram chat, but a few express their fears that the arrivals may make Kazakhstan a target for Russia.
With an already sizeable ethnic Russian population, there are concerns that Putin may one day turn his attention to "liberating" citizens in the north.
Putin's war creates tensions with Central Asian allies
As these dynamics are playing out in cities all over the country, there has been a broader shift in the geopolitical landscape in Central Asia since Putin's war.
The Russian leader has clung to the idea of Moscow's "sphere of influence," a collection of former satellite states that once belonged to the Soviet empire.
But when Putin arrived in Kazakhstan on October 13 to attend a series of regional meetings, he received a surprising response.
In a lengthy rebuke, the leader of Tajikistan, one of the region's smallest and poorest countries, complained that Moscow's attitude had not improved since the Soviet era.
"We want respect. Nothing else. Respect," Emomali Rakhmon said.
Kazakhstan's leader has also stood up to Moscow, with observers noting he held no bilateral meeting with Putin, despite hosting the summit and meeting with several other leaders.
Since the war, he has refused to recognise the Donetsk and Luhansk regions as independent republics and in an apparent veiled reference to Russia, he has complained of personal attacks on national leaders that "poison the atmosphere of cooperation" in the post-Soviet space.
However, Kazakhstan still maintains important trade ties with its neighbour and shares a long cultural past.
It also looks to Russia as the region's "policeman" within the group of six countries that make up the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).
The group, which includes Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia, was set up after the collapse of the Soviet Union and is regarded by observers as a regional answer to NATO.
When Tokayev faced widespread protests and riots in January after lifting the price cap on liquefied petroleum, it was the CSTO that stepped in with Russian paratroopers to help "stabilise the country".
Putin may have expected Kazakhstan to return the favour with Ukraine, observers say, but the country has so far held off on making any such commitments.
In another sign of the strained relationship between the two countries, Kazakh authorities also snubbed a demand from Russia to expel Ukraine's ambassador Petro Vrublevskiy over comments she made about the war in Ukraine.
Kazakhstan rejected what they called Russia's inappropriate tone between "equal strategic partners".
"I think there's a lot of people who talk about Putin's grand strategy, with the Ukraine war he pretty much did the exact opposite of everything he wanted," Paul Stronski, an expert on Russia and Central Asia relations and a senior fellow for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said.
As a result, Russia's standing in the region has diminished, prompting some Central Asian countries to respond with more assertiveness.
"Russia has long wanted what it calls a "multipolar world," where it's not just a western-dominated international system, but rising powers have an equal say," Stronski said.
"Well, they kind of have a multipolar world [now], which is not the one that they wanted. It's right in their backyard."
Could China be strengthening ties in Central Asia?
In alienating some of its closest neighbours, Stronski says Russia has also driven them to seek ties with other powers, including Turkey, Japan, the United States, and China.
In September, China's President Xi Jinping made a notable visit to Kazakhstan ahead of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Leaders Summit.
Xi had been ensconced inside China since the country all but shut its borders in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
The significance of selecting Kazakhstan for his first trip to a foreign nation in nearly 1,000 days was not lost on China watchers, who argued it could be seen as a sign that "Beijing sees Kazakhstan as a friend and Russia should not do anything to hurt Beijing's friend".
But Stronski said there were a few other factors at play.
"I think Kazakhstan and then Uzbekistan were likely choices to visit because the Chinese knew he'd get a good reception there," Stronski said, adding that both were "authoritarian states and wary of criticising China".
With the world's largest oil and gas reserves as well as a rich supply of minerals from gold to uranium and tungsten at its disposal, Kazakhstan also has important economic standing in the region.
"Kazakhstan was [Xi's] first stop and Uzbekistan was the second ... those are both the most important countries politically and with the biggest markets," Stronski said.
"Both are important for Beijing if it wants to re-route its Belt And Road infrastructure around Russian territory."
China has formed close economic ties with its near neighbour, investing nearly $US14 billion, as of 2019, in Kazak oil and gas projects.
And recently Xi has also pledged to provide it with resolute support for "the defence of its independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity".
But China is a sensitive issue in Kazakhstan, according to Stronski, with people protests previously held at the Embassy of China over the treatment of Uighurs.
In 2016, there were also massive anti-land reform demonstrations, which were held because the public thought it could lead to China buying up cheap Kazakh land.
"Whether Kazakhstan really wants a closer relationship with China is unclear," Stronski said.
But, he says Kazakhstan "certainly wants enhanced security ties with China both to counterbalance Russia and its threats".
With his reliable allies beginning to challenge his influence, Putin has been delivered another blow to his campaign to assert Russia as a global power.
"Countries [like Kazakhstan] are looking for new economic partners in dealing with Russia," Stronski said.
"I really think Russia is losing some of its clout in the region."
With additional reporting from Naubet Bisenov in Almaty and Reuters.
