TOPIC: Kazakhstan Spirals into Violence as Leader Tells Troops to 'Shoot to Kill.'

In Kazakhstan, protests have spiralled in to violence as the president ordered security forces to 'shoot to kill, without warning', following days of unrest in the authoritarian Central Asian nation. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev warned that demonstrators would be destroyed, with no mercy for 'terrorists'. Already, many protestors are reported to be dead, along with several police officers, in the worst violence Kazakhstan has witnessed as an independent nation. The interior ministry released figures that stated 26 armed criminals had been killed with more than 3,000 detained since January 1st. 18 police and national guard members have also been killed. What began as protests over rising fuel prices have transformed into wholesale anti-government riots. As a response, Tokayev called on Russian assistance to quell the protests, with Russian forces arriving on Thursday. 

The Background to the Ensuing Violence

The uprising initially began as protests against a New Year's Day fuel price rise. The following Wednesday the size of the protests increased, with chants against former Soviet-era dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev and the storming and torching of public buildings in cities across the nation. Tokayev, the handpicked successor to Nazarbayev who stepped aside from the Presidency in 2019, responded initially by dismissing his cabinet, reversing the fuel price rises and highlighting his distance between himself and Nazarbayev. These methods proved unsuccessful, with the clear disparity in wealth between Nazarbayev and the largely poor masses a factor that likely antagonised demonstrators. Protesters went on to seize a number of key locations across the largest city Almaty, as well other cities across the nation, including  Almaty's main square and the main international airport.

The Government Response

Initially, local security and police forces were deployed, but this proved inadequate. Even when the national guard was brought in, along with a nation-wide internet shutdown, protestors remain wedged in several key positions. In a desperate gamble, Tokayev called on the Russian-led military alliance of former Soviet states, to combat what he described as foreign trained 'terrorist groups'. Moscow duly obliged, deploying paratroopers to critical locations to secure its interests in the oil and uranium-rich nation. The number of troops deployed have not been disclosed, but it appears that on Friday, protesters had been dislodged from the airport, as well as the main government buildings in Almaty. For Russia, it sends a serious message about her commitments to its allies in the region. This was mirrored by Russia's support for Belarus in 2020, as well as its intervention to halt the war in Nagorno-Karabakh between Azerbaijan and Armenia and its massing of forces on the Ukrainian border late last year. 

Protestors in Almaty.
Source: Abduaziz Madyarov /AFP via Getty Images.