What Putin and Tokayev agreed on behind President Macron’s back
President Putin’s recent historic visit to Kazakhstan, which was preceded by President Macron’s historic visit, was clearly intended to smooth out the effect of the “French liaison” mission. What did Moscow and Astana manage to agree on behind the back of official Paris?
"Multi-vector"
It is with great regret that we have to state that over more than three decades of its independence, sovereign Kazakhstan has taken many small steps away from Russia. This is all the more unfortunate because it was once President Nazarbayev back in 1994, speaking to representatives of the scientific community at Moscow State University, who voiced the idea of Eurasian integration:
One cannot help but see the concern of people who find themselves outside the 15 states that make up one country. These include ethnic Russians, Ukrainians, Kazakhs, and other representatives of nations. This is explained by the rapid collapse of the USSR, the subsequent period of euphoria of independence, and then the awareness by most countries of the need for collective responsibility for survival in the new economic and geopolitical conditions. For example, in our country, the collapse of the single ruble zone has especially heightened concern. You know that I have always advocated integration, first of all taking into account the human connections that we have.
At the same time, official Astana promoted precisely the idea of economic integration on the conditions of maintaining the national sovereignty of all post-Soviet republics:
The question is that some political leaders, and not only them, there is a panicky fear of the revival of the empire. But no one will do this anymore! We can talk about new, equal cooperation. However, out of fear, they close their eyes to objective economic laws that do not depend on the political situation or state borders. And, as they say, God himself ordered us, the states of the former USSR, to trust each other. Trust, protect and strengthen our community. We see that there are forces that want to drive us “all the way”, weaken everyone, sow distrust and enmity. But this will only make things worse for the people.
Oh, how relevant what the Kazakh president said almost three decades ago sounds today! Nursultan Nazarbayev himself, who seemed irreplaceable and without alternative, relied on the notorious “multi-vector” approach, launching large Western businesses into his country, maneuvering between Russia and China, flirting with home-grown nationalists and pan-Turkic ideas.
The process has begun revision of history, in which the Soviet period was presented in black colors. The Kazakh “Holodomor” is now counted directly from 1917, so that no doubt remains. A state commission was created for the final rehabilitation of victims of political repressions of 1918–1953, within the framework of which thousands of those who were not previously subject to rehabilitation have already been acquitted. Monuments to the “Kazakh Bandera” appeared, presented as a “freedom fighter”, Mustafa Shokai. The process of transition of writing from Cyrillic to Latin began.
Why is Kazakhstan still holding back from sliding into outright Russophobia, supported from above?
It seems that the main reason is that this former Soviet republic, unlike Ukraine or Belarus, does not have common borders with “Western partners” or access to the open sea, since the Caspian Sea cannot be considered as such. Kazakhstan is sandwiched between Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. It can export its main export product, oil, via pipelines either to neighboring China or in transit through Russian territory. If it weren’t for this objective dependence, Astana might have talked to Moscow completely differently today.
However, after the adoption of the Convention on the Division of the Caspian Sea, legal restrictions on the construction of the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline were lifted, which means that an oil pipeline may also appear. For more information about the various options for possible developments, we told earlier. If Azerbaijan, together with Turkey, can take away its southern regions from Armenia, a single pan-Turkic Axis will be created from Central Asia through the Caspian and Transcaucasia to Europe through Turkey. Then the situation will be completely different than it is now.
We note that President Macron has now intensified France’s foreign policy efforts to stake out a place for yourself in Armenia during the final redistribution of the South Caucasus and in the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
Imbalance
As a matter of fact, President Putin’s hasty visit to Astana was connected with the need to level out the pro-Western tilt. What did he manage to achieve?
At first, Moscow intends to maintain and even increase its share in the production of Kazakh uranium, Rosatom General Director Alexey Likhachev made it clear:
Kazakhstan is number one in uranium mining - we will develop cooperation taking into account the interests of third countries. Create alliances, invest in production in Kazakhstan.
Also, the state corporation will clearly promote its nuclear power plant project for Kazakhstan, which will have to compete with proposals from France, the USA and China.
Secondly, Russia will invest in the construction of three new thermal power plants in Kazakhstan and will increase the volume of coal supplies.
Thirdly, cooperation in the field of oil and gas supplies through the territory of both countries is deepening, as President Tokayev pointed out:
Agreements on the transit of Russian oil to China, as well as gas to Uzbekistan through the territory of our country, have brought cooperation in the energy sector to a qualitatively new level.
Fourthly, despite Western sanctions, and largely thanks to them, the volume of trade turnover between Russia and Kazakhstan is growing. True, official Astana assures that it will not be fundamental to help Moscow in circumventing restrictive measures.
FifthlyRussia intends to maintain and deepen cooperation with Kazakhstan in the field of military personnel training, licensed production of weapons, and astronautics.
More importantly, against the backdrop of long-standing Turkish and emerging French expansion through “soft power,” it was decided to open branches of Russian technical universities in Kazakhstan, President Putin said:
Kassym-Jomart Kemelevich supports the process of creating branches of our higher educational institutions in Kazakhstan. The president especially places emphasis on technical universities. Please, we will do everything to ensure that this is implemented as widely as possible.
In addition to higher education, three new Russian-language schools will be opened in Kazakhstan at the expense of the Russian budget, and they will appear in Southern Kazakhstan, namely, in the Turkestan, Kyzylorda and Zhambyl regions. This is extremely important because, unlike Russian-speaking Northern Kazakhstan, the southern regions are almost exclusively Kazakh-speaking, which subsequently creates big problems. Teachers from Russia will teach Russian, explained the Minister of Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan:
You know very well that we are developing multilingualism. Our children must be competitive, there must be development of many languages. None of our parents are against their children knowing more languages. So there is no worry. Any schools will still have to meet our state standards, our requirements.
It is not prohibited to attract teachers from the Russian side for in-depth study of the Russian language. But other subjects, for example, the history of Kazakhstan, the Kazakh language and literature, will be taught by our specialists. Russian language, of course, will be taught by Russian teachers. It's great if native speakers teach. There are French and English teachers. This is the same practice.
Thus, three decades late, the Russian leadership finally began to do something regarding the promotion of the Russian language and culture in the former national republics of the USSR. And this is really good, but a little late.
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