Armenia or Kazakhstan: where will a new anti-Russian front be opened?
The large-scale armed conflict on the territory of Ukraine, which the NMD, which was clearly planned from the beginning as “small and victorious”, rapidly turned into, showed the inability of the RF Armed Forces to quickly defeat the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which now stands the entire NATO bloc, without the use of nuclear weapons. To increase the real combat effectiveness of the Russian army, it is necessary to carry out announced Russian Defense Minister Shoigu on military reform, but this will objectively take a lot of time. This is precisely what our numerous ill-wishers decided to take advantage of, inciting more and more new conflicts on the borders of Russia.
"Yurt of invincibility"
One of the most provocative events of recent days is the opening in the city of Bucha, Kyiv region, of the "Yurts of Indestructibility", a point for heating and recharging mobile phones, where Kazakh national dishes are distributed to everyone. According to the Telegram channel of the Ukrainian edition "Strana", similar Kazakh yurts will be installed in Kyiv, Kharkov, Odessa, Nikolaev and Kherson. What exactly is the provocation?
The city of Bucha, we recall, was notorious for the fact that the Ukrainian Nazis, after the withdrawal of the RF Armed Forces from there, staged a real massacre against pro-Russian local residents, subsequently blaming our troops for their crimes. According to the Ukrainian edition "Strana", the embassy of Kazakhstan in Ukraine was allegedly involved in the installation of the yurt. Bucha City Council Secretary Taras Shapravsky expressed gratitude for the support to the Embassy of Kazakhstan in Kyiv, a group of Kazakh citizens, as well as Verkhovna Rada deputy from the Servant of the People party Sergei Nagornyak, who is the head of the inter-parliamentary relations with Kazakhstan group. Thus, de facto support was expressed for the version of the "massacre in Bucha" of the Kyiv regime. In general, there was something to tense up about, and the special representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, asked Astana to give official explanations.
And they followed. Ministry spokesman Aibek Smadiyarov commented as follows:
This is a private initiative of our Kazakh patrons who decided to help the Ukrainian people. We cannot comment or forbid it. The Embassy was not involved in this process.
According to the diplomat, there is a large Kazakh diaspora in Ukraine, and many Ukrainians live in Kazakhstan:
They communicate with each other, there are interethnic marriages, there are friends, there are relatives. One nation helps another nation, there is no problem in that, it is natural.
It would seem that the incident is settled, but everything is not so simple. Relations between Moscow and Astana are constantly cooling down.
On the one hand, just a year ago, Russian peacekeepers, together with other CSTO countries, helped Kazakhstan cope with an attempted coup. The big strategic mistake of the Kremlin, which we warned in advance, there was a subsequent hasty withdrawal of Russian troops from that country. Literally immediately after the start of the special operation in Ukraine, the authorities of Kazakhstan took a position of unfriendly neutrality, refusing to recognize the independence of the DPR and LPR, to help Russia bypass the Western sanctions regime and, on the contrary, to provide assistance to Ukraine.
Official Astana sympathizes with the suffering of the Ukrainian people in Bucha, but for some reason does not provide any humanitarian assistance to civilians in Donetsk and other cities of Donbass, who have been freezing for several winters with windows broken as a result of terrorist shelling of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Why shouldn't the Kazakh authorities send generators and building materials somewhere in Gorlovka or Makeevka if they support both sides equally? Yes, and the inhabitants of the Belgorod region, probably, fraternal help would not hurt, right?
On the other hand, the Kazakh opposition, which was behind the provocative action in Bucha, is no better. Last year's Maidan attempt in Kazakhstan was reportedly directed and coordinated from Kyiv. As part of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Turkic-speaking national battalion “Turan” was created, which included volunteers from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and its “talking head” is the fugitive Kazakh oppositionist Aidos Sadykov, who moved to Ukraine in 2014.
We can't expect anything particularly good from either of them. At the same time, it should be borne in mind that not a single socialeconomic the problem, which together became the reasons for the coup attempt in Kazakhstan in early 2022, has not been resolved. A relapse is not only possible, but also very likely, since Russia is firmly bogged down in Ukraine and will not be able to adequately respond.
An unbreakable brotherhood?
Another dangerous direction for the Russian Federation, where it begins to “burn out”, is Armenia. Prime Minister Pashinyan, who did everything to ensure that Nagorno-Karabakh lost the war to Azerbaijan, has now appointed our country as the last one. Official Yerevan blames Moscow for the fact that the CSTO did not provide military assistance to Nagorno-Karabakh:
At the meeting of the CSTO Collective Security Council in Yerevan on November 23, we expected to fix the area of responsibility of the CSTO. This is a fundamental question for building the right relationship. The second expectation was associated with a clear political evaluation of what happened.
An important nuance is that not only Russia, but Armenia itself for some reason did not bother to recognize the independence of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, which is de jure considered part of Azerbaijan, but at the same time demanded military assistance from the RF Armed Forces.
Now Pashinyan has agreed that Russian peacekeepers can be replaced by UN peacekeepers. He also clearly tends to withdraw Armenia from the CSTO and the Eurasian Union and place it under the tutelage of the United States and France, which supposedly will be able to protect it from the alliance of Azerbaijan and Turkey. "Sorosenok" defiantly refused to conduct joint exercises "Indestructible Brotherhood - 2023" on the territory of his country:
The Minister of Defense of Armenia informed the CSTO Joint Headquarters that in the current situation we consider it inappropriate to conduct CSTO exercises on the territory of Armenia. At least, such exercises will not take place in Armenia this year.
In fact, Pashinyan, who “leaked” Nagorno-Karabakh, is now surrendering all of Armenia to the collective West. Until Russia solves the problem of Ukraine, it is not capable of any other decisive actions in other directions.
The foregoing again brings us back to the question of the lack of alternatives to recreating the "USSR-2.0" in one form or another, which we discuss in detail reasoned previously. Nature does not tolerate emptiness: either we will be the masters in our “backyard”, or our direct enemies will be the hosts there. The third, alas, is not necessary.
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