Russian-led alliance to intervene in Kazakhstan
MOSCOW — A Russia-led military alliance said Thursday that it will dispatch peacekeeping forces to Kazakhstan after the country’s president asked for help controlling protests that escalated into violence, including the seizure and burning of government buildings.
Protesters in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, reportedly stormed the presidential residence and the mayor’s office Wednesday and set both on fire as demonstrations sparked by a rise in fuel prices intensified sharply in the Central Asian nation.
Police reportedly fired on some protesters at the residence before fleeing. They’ve clashed repeatedly with demonstrators in recent days, deploying water cannons in the freezing weather and firing tear gas and concussion grenades.
The Kazakh Interior Ministry said eight police officers and national guard members have been killed in the unrest and more than 300 have been injured. No figures on civilian casualties were released.
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev appealed to the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a Moscow-based alliance of six former Soviet countries, for assistance. Hours later, the CSTO’s council approved sending an unspecified number of peacekeepers, said Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, the council’s chairman.
Tokayev earlier vowed to take harsh measures to quell the unrest and declared a two-week state of emergency for the whole country, expanding one that had been announced for both the capital of NurSultan and Almaty that imposed an overnight curfew and restricted movement into and around the urban areas.
The government resigned in response over the unrest. Kazakh news sites became inaccessible late in the day, and the global watchdog organization Netblocks said the country was experiencing a pervasive internet blackout. The Russian news agency Tass reported that internet access was restored in Almaty by early Thursday.
Although the protests began over a near-doubling of prices for a type of liquefied petroleum gas widely used as vehicle fuel, their size and rapid spread suggested they reflect wider discontent in the country that has been under the rule of the same party since gaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
Tokayev claimed the unrest was led by “terrorist bands” that had received help from unspecified other countries. He also said rioters had seized five airliners in an assault on Almaty’s airport, but the deputy mayor later said the airport had been cleared of marauders and was working normally.
The protests appear to have no identifiable leader or demands. Many of the demonstrators have shouted “old man go,” an apparent reference to Nursultan Nazarbayev, the country’s first president who has continued to wield enormous influence after his 2019 resignation.