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Russia sends troops to Kazakhstan to put down deadly uprising

reuters.com

211–220 of 330 posts

Re: Russia sends troops to Kazakhstan to put down deadly uprising

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to school with a young kazak person I don't want to reveal to much about them, but let me just say this. Their parents had direct contact to the state and they were unaccountably rich went to an insanely expensive private school and owned various apartments all across Europe. The west DOES benefit from the corruption related to those states.

A couple of rich oligarchs playing around with their money in the west doesn't benefit the western economy much. The money they spend is nothing compared to the economies of those western countries. The ones who benefit from the corruption are the ones who have access to the tax stream.

Mate, research who controls Kazakh natural resources: it's western corporations. It allows them to extract resources and money from Kazakhstan without paying much back. And it's a lot of money and valuable natural resources like copper and uranium.

Same was happening in Russia in 90s: western corporation took control of all Russia's natural resources using phony agreements and corrupt businessmen (like Mikhail Khodorkovsky). E.g. in 90s people in Russia were dying of hunger, but oil was sold to the West by the price of water.

When Putin came to power, first thing he had done is returning control over natural resources. That's exactly the moment when all the West started vilifying him so badly.

Re: Russia sends troops to Kazakhstan to put down deadly uprising

#212
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NATO doesn’t have any obligation to “help” break down civilian protests by sending out paratroopers from one of its members to another member state so no it’s not similar.

NATO not only has this obligation, with Gladio it was active in violently breaking down civilian protests in Italy. This was actually revealed by the center-right government in Italy in 1990, because they were more scared of the US/NATO involvement in Italian domestic affairs, then their own left leaning working class.

Don’t you think that an global intelligence operation is a bit different than officially asking for foreign military intervention in your own country against civilians?

Re: Russia sends troops to Kazakhstan to put down deadly uprising

#213
post #47

I traveled many post-Soviet countries in the past years with my old camping car. My personal impressions in Kazakhstan were frightening. A deeply corrupt state, much worse than Russia. Aggressive armed bandits in police uniform tried to rob me several times. Kazakhstan is true mafia state where every part of the regime tries to enrich itself at the expanse of the people. In contrast to the rich oil elite there are th…

> But why is such a dysfunctional dictatorship so stable? Why did it last for three decades? Ceaușescu went from addressing a mass crowd in the square to execution in five days after ruling for about 25 years. Dictatorships are like steam boilers: so long as the pressure is contained, everything looks fine, until suddenly it isn't. (Interestingly having looked him up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Ceau%C8%99es…

Exactly. The supposed "stability" of authoritarian dictatorships is a complete illusion. They look stable because there's no one exposing how very brittle they are, how much discontent is bubbling below the surface. That's why nothing at all was happening in Tunisia until a fruit stand owner set himself on fire and it all came crushing down. So it is here in Kazakhstan, except Russians come to the rescue to prop up the dictatorship. They probably realize the parallels with their own.

Re: Russia sends troops to Kazakhstan to put down deadly uprising

#214

It seems noteworthy that Kazakhstan represents ~22% of Bitcoins hashrate (~45 TWh/year of electricity), at the same time as people are out in the streets rioting over the price of heating their homes.

> rioting over the price of heating their homes.

Even though the price of LPG had doubled and that supposedly caused riots, even the new doubled price is way lower than price of LPG in Europe and other parts of the world.

Re: Russia sends troops to Kazakhstan to put down deadly uprising

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not the definition of puppet state. Wikipedia: > A puppet state is a state that is de jure independent but de facto completely dependent upon an outside power and subject to its orders. Even though Kazakh president does become dependent on Russian forces to some degree, I don't see how 3000 soldiers can control a country with an army of 100,000, National guard of 32,000 and 86,000 policemen. It may give an u…

That's enough for subversive activity. Especially with their previous experience in Ukraine (I'm informed the people, if one can still call them that, from Donbas will help to "bring peace" in Kazakhstan).

True, but Russian government saw current governments of Ukraine and Kazakhstan as allies, and the new Ukrainian one as an enemy. This is because of their belief in conspiracies behind mass protests.

Re: Russia sends troops to Kazakhstan to put down deadly uprising

#216
I'm sure the troops are there only for their vacation.

Jokes aside, this is as if the NATO (especially the USA) would send troops to France against the yellow west protests. Or as if the NATO would be sending troops against the Catalonian separation movement. The NATO also didn't send troops to Turkey during the Turkish coup d'état attempt.

What the CSTO is doing here can only be compared with the Warsaw Pact sending troops to suppress the Prague Spring. It shows that the CSTO is basically the successor of the Warsaw pact.

Re: Russia sends troops to Kazakhstan to put down deadly uprising

#218
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Foreign army in this context is just using a treaty you signed with an ally to request assistance. It’s as “foreign” as any NATO country’s army to another.

> It’s as “foreign” as any NATO country’s army to another. I don't believe your comparison is even remotely adequate. Could you point out an example of a NATO member requesting a military intervention from another NATO member in their own country to respond to protests? Because what we're seeing here is a blatant attempt by Russia to preserve Kazakhstan's regime by having foreign armed forces intervene against the na…

I think you are missing the point

I doubt OP is _condoning_ the CSTO troops (who are more than just russia) coming to the president's aid.

CSTO is not the same as NATO, but it is similar. There is a strategic alliance between Russia and the government of Kazakhstan. It is more than logical for the president to pull in troops to counteract their own troop's defection.

Its not morally correct, but entirely logical, which I think OP was trying to say.

Re: Russia sends troops to Kazakhstan to put down deadly uprising

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah its ok to be suspicious of these type of comments, we already know nation states do everything they can to make sure they have the proper PR optics. The US, especially China (genocide), and why not Russia too. The truth is self evident here, Kazak leadership is just another neo-colonial muppet for whoever is calling the shots on natural resources. These are not Slavs and no they dont belong to Russia in any sens…

Slavic people do not belong to Russia in any sense either. Certainly I do not. Even Russian speakers do not always want to associated themselves with Russia.

> Even Russian speakers do not always want to associated themselves with Russia.

You cannot speak for all of us.

Re: Russia sends troops to Kazakhstan to put down deadly uprising

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And yet, it's Russia and it's strong-arm tactics that are desperately trying to keep Kazakhstan's regime in power. If Russia is so influential over Kazakhstan, why all natural resources and power plants in Kazakhstan belong to Western companies? Why Nazarbaev had replaced Cyrillic alphabet with Latin? It was clearly a jab at Russia. Kazakhstan was/is clearly under heavy western influence. > Think about it: Russia i…

>If Russia is so influential over Kazakhstan, why all natural resources and power plants in Kazakhstan belong to Western companies? This is false. Kazakhstan retains most oil revenues and its joint ventures with foreign companies for oil exploration and drilling include not just Western, but also for example Chinese companies. >Why Nazarbaev had replaced Cyrillic alphabet with Latin? Because he saw clearly how Putin…

This line the comment said also is not logical at all > “ What will US do if in case of civil unrest in Mexico, Russia will send troops to Mexico?”

This makes no sense, no one is alleging Mexico is under Russia’s thumb so this makes no sense. Replace Mexico with Cuba circa 1970 and it would be relevant. And also yes, if Cuba in 1970, I would not be surprised if Russia sent in troops if Castro asked.

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