One wave after another, while Russia was still fighting Ukraine in the west, something went wrong again in the east. Neighboring country Kazakhstan was originally close to Russia, but now it has turned against it, and the relationship between the two parties is in crisis.
html On July 5, Russia cut off Kazakhstan’s economic lifeline, the Caspian Sea oil pipeline, on the grounds of “dealing with oil leaks” and required the other party to suspend operations for 30 days.Since this pipeline needs to pass through Russian territory, Kazakhstan's oil exports will be greatly restricted after Russia cuts off this pipeline.
Kazakhstan is the largest landlocked country with a vast territory, sparse population, and rich mineral resources. Oil export has become one of the pillars of its economy. After being cut off from Russia's economic lifeline, Kazakhstan did not compromise, but chose to fight back and immediately announced its withdrawal from the CIS Transnational Monetary Committee.
The oil pipeline cut off by Russia is the main way for Kazakhstan's oil exports. Oil is the resource that Kazakhstan depends on for its livelihood. Even if the oil export pipeline is only temporarily cut off, the loss to Kazakhstan will be inestimable.
Since Russia and Kazakhstan are closely related, and helped Kazakhstan quell the riots in January this year, preventing President Tokayev from being ousted, why did they suddenly turn against each other now?
Analysts say there may be several reasons for Russia and Kazakhstan to turn against each other.
First, Kazakhstan and Russia are neighboring countries. They have been influenced by Russia for a long time and belong to Russia's traditional sphere of influence. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union , although Kazakhstan became independent, it was controlled by Moscow to a certain extent. Starting from former President Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan has focused on " de-Russifying ", implementing political and economic system reforms, getting rid of the Soviet-era system, and keeping a distance from Russia;
Secondly, the Russia-Ukraine conflict broke out Later, Russia was dissatisfied with some of Kazakhstan's practices. For example, Kazakhstan refused to follow Russia in sending troops to Ukraine and canceled flights to the Russian capital. Tokayev refused to recognize the "independent country" status of the two states in Ukraine and Eastern Russia in front of Putin . Of course, Kazakhstan does not want to completely break with Russia, so it has not followed the West in imposing sanctions on Russia. Kazakhstan also participates in official meetings or forums hosted by Russia.
Thirdly, Kazakhstan’s relationship with the West is “ambiguous”. This is also Russia is very worried. The reason for the riots in Kazakhstan is actually the result of its closeness to the West. There are tens of thousands of non-governmental organizations in Kazakhstan. These are tools for the West to plan "color revolutions". One of the reasons why Russia sent troops to Kazakhstan to help quell the unrest was to win over Kazakhstan and prevent it from falling to the West. However, Tokayev’s subsequent actions disappointed Putin.
Russia and Kazakhstan are both energy giants, and their economic development depends on oil exports. Russia was sanctioned by the West for sending troops to Ukraine, and its oil exports were restricted. The European Union , which is suffering from the energy crisis, wants to find an alternative to Russia, and Kazakhstan is also among the choices.
Kazakhstan saw the signs and knew that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine was a God-given opportunity for Kazakhstan to make oil wealth, so Tokayev took the initiative to contact EU leader Michel and proposed to export oil to EU countries to alleviate the European oil crisis. . Tokayev specifically mentioned that Kazakhstan can replace 90% of Russia's oil imports.
For Russia, Kazakhstan's behavior is tantamount to "backstabbing an ally", just like the United States backstabbing France regardless of its allies and stealing arms orders from France and Australia.
For these reasons, Russia is very disappointed with Kazakhstan. Cutting off its economic lifeline is to teach the other party a lesson to do its own thing and not to fall on the wrong team.
However, Kazakhstan is not timid and is not intimidated by Russia.
Lithuania In order to retaliate against Russia, it imposed sanctions on the Russian enclave Kaliningrad and prohibited Russia from transporting supplies to Kaliningrad through Lithuanian territory.Kazakhstan has followed suit and proposed banning Russian goods from transiting through Kazakhstan's territory. However, this proposal has not yet been established in the form of legislation .
In order to solve the problem of restricted oil exports, Kazakhstan plans to bypass Russian territory and build a trans-Caspian channel, and then reach Azerbaijan on the other side, and then transport the oil to EU countries via Azerbaijan. In addition, Kazakhstan also plans to open multiple oil channels to export oil to China in the east and sell oil to South and Southeast Asia through ports in Iran and South Asia. In this way, Kazakhstan can effectively bypass Russia's "blockade" and ensure the safety of its own oil channels.
For Russia, they were "betrayed" by Kazakhstan and helped it quell the riots but did not get the ideal return. So some Russian officials "Ukrainized" Kazakhstan, but the Kremlin did not make such a statement, This shows that there is still room for maneuver in the relationship between the two countries.
Of course, Russia is currently busy fighting against Ukraine. Even if it is dissatisfied with Kazakhstan, it will not resort to violence and will give priority to repairing relations between the two countries through diplomatic channels.
However, once Russia withdraws its troops from Ukraine and Kazakhstan has not yet "changed its mind," no one can say whether Central Asia will become the next Eastern Europe.
