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Kazakhstan: New troubles bought on by fuel price hike

Some cobbled together amateur strategic analysis:

  • the fuel concerned in the price rise is LPG
  • this mirrors global LPG price rises
  • these global price rises were caused, in part and to a significant degree, by Putin refusing to increase supply
  • that was a strategic move as he tried to extract concessions in the West - Baltics and the Ukraine mainly

Now it looks as if that has backfired quite badly indeed as he now has a very big problem (Kazakhstan) really very close indeed to his big target (Ukraine). For my money, I still think there is an intelligence play going on here - that doesn't mean that this is all confected, I'm sure people are very pissed off indeed, but why now? Kazakhstan has been run by more or less the same people since the fall of the USSR.
 
not-bono-ever said:
Baikonur is just down the road from Almaty ( these things are all relative ) , still under lease to Russia and an income generator for Russia these days.
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Well over halfway back west across the country and quite a hike. Plenty of assets there they will want secured, particularly as they are nowhere close to transferring most (if not all) launches to Vostochny yet. But it is so remote, sprawling and essentially a military base anyway. Of course, all the oil and gas fields happen to be over that way too.
 
Heard an American academic on the radio call the uprising an attempt to unseat the ruling Nazarbayev clan who of monopolised most commerce. Mr Nazarbayev - probably comparable to Putin or Lukashenko as an authoritarian capitalist who ruled for most of time since the dissolution of the union.

Reminded me of meeting a Kazakh lad last year and talking about clans. The Kazakh passports list your clan, and it restricts to who you can marry. Translated his social media posts from today but I didn't understand. Mentions of 'recognising Crimea', 'staying home and don't be provoked' (guess he would say that as a rich foreign student), and 'Russian as a second state language like in Kyrgyzstan'.

I am inclined towards class analysis - but that doesn't necessarily contradict the clan interpretation. Though surely the whole clan aren't rich, and can side with the working class rather than their tribal elders.
 
Ĝasper said:
Heard an American academic on the radio call the uprising an attempt to unseat the ruling Nazarbayev clan who of monopolised most commerce. Mr Nazarbayev - probably comparable to Putin or Lukashenko as an authoritarian capitalist who ruled for most of time since the dissolution of the union.

Reminded me of meeting a Kazakh lad last year and talking about clans. The Kazakh passports list your clan, and it restricts to who you can marry. Translated his social media posts from today but I didn't understand. Mentions of 'recognising Crimea', 'staying home and don't be provoked' (guess he would say that as a rich foreign student), and 'Russian as a second state language like in Kyrgyzstan'.

I am inclined towards class analysis - but that doesn't necessarily contradict the clan interpretation. Though surely the whole clan aren't rich, and can side with the working class rather than their tribal elders.
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No idea of the clan stuff there, but thanks for drawing attention to it. It definitely is a complicating and sometimes significant factor in some parts of the world where you might otherwise not expect it to be, and it for sure can be something people from 'the West' can be a bit unaware of.
 
LynnDoyleCooper said:
No idea of the clan stuff there, but thanks for drawing attention to it. It definitely is a complicating and sometimes significant factor in some parts of the world where you might otherwise not expect it to be, and it for sure can be something people from 'the West' can be a bit unaware of.
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No doubt Putin understands it well and has learned a few lessons from the Afghan Soviet war regarding the need to understand other cultures.
 
Listening to BBC R4, and the BBC reporter in Almaty, it seems - perhaps unsurprisingly - that there are several things happening at the same time, all with their own agency - which is remarkable for forrin types, as usually they are just unthinking pawns of CIA/Mossad/MI6 or the Rothschild's:

The 'popular' unhappiness at rampant inflation, a heroically corrupt government/ruling class, and 30+ years of authoritarian dictatorship.

A fight between the new regime and the old regime - who are kind of the same, but it's about who gets to be astonishingly rich.

Mafia types, fighting for themselves, fighting criminal empires.

The armed/security forces, who apparently the new guy - who's also the old guy - doesn't trust. Nothing says he doesn't trust them, or they won't work for him, like having to sub-contract your internal security to several thousand Russian paratroopers.

It appears that protests in the west have stayed relatively peaceful, while the east has gone violent.

Lots of stuff, all swirling around in a maelstrom of chaos, different agendas, and probably very few experienced and knowledgeable Kazakhstan watchers....
 
kebabking said:
Listening to BBC R4, and the BBC reporter in Almaty, it seems - perhaps unsurprisingly - that there are several things happening at the same time, all with their own agency - which is remarkable for forrin types, as usually they are just unthinking pawns of CIA/Mossad/MI6 or the Rothschild's:

The 'popular' unhappiness at rampant inflation, a heroically corrupt government/ruling class, and 30+ years of authoritarian dictatorship.

A fight between the new regime and the old regime - who are kind of the same, but it's about who gets to be astonishingly rich.

Mafia types, fighting for themselves, fighting criminal empires.

The armed/security forces, who apparently the new guy - who's also the old guy - doesn't trust. Nothing says he doesn't trust them, or they won't work for him, like having to sub-contract your internal security to several thousand Russian paratroopers.

It appears that protests in the west have stayed relatively peaceful, while the east has gone violent.

Lots of stuff, all swirling around in a maelstrom of chaos, different agendas, and probably very few experienced and knowledgeable Kazakhstan watchers....
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beats PLA
 
gosub said:
beats PLA
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Lots of chat about whether Putin will want to embroil the Chinese in this, or keep them out, and whether they'll want to avoid it like the plague, or start firming up their own near abroad...

I've also read stuff that suggests there's a kind of split - that political/military power is in Putin's pocket, while the economic stuff is more in China's, which could give them a joint interest, or be a point of conflict.
 
kebabking said:
Lots of chat about whether Putin will want to embroil the Chinese in this, or keep them out, and whether they'll want to avoid it like the plague, or start firming up their own near abroad...

I've also read stuff that suggests there's a kind of split - that political/military power is in Putin's pocket, while the economic stuff is more in China's, which could give them a joint interest, or be a point of conflict.
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xinjiang has a long border with kazakhstan so sure the chinese have quite an interest in the country politically already. i don't know whether kazakhstan is as near abroad as say ukraine is: but i doubt he wants the chinese nuzzling at russia's soft underbelly
 
Tokayev is by no means Moscow’s client, yet allowing him (and Nazarbayev too, at long last) to be toppled would, in Moscow’s thinking, allow the forces of ultra-nationalism to come to the fore, likely followed at some point by Islamist radicals. So Tokayev must be saved, just like Belarus’s longtime leader Alexander Lukashenko back in the summer of 2020, when protests erupted there.
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Analyst at one of the US foreign policy think-tanks: https://carnegiemoscow.org/commentary/86141 reckons it's all a bit prickly from Russia's POV and apparently the intervention isn't popular at home.
 
Read a good quip last night that went something like, 'Looking foward to the first "Hands off Kazakhstan!" demo attended by a small number of people, none of which will be from Kazakhstan, and mentioning a load of countries except the one that's actually just sent a load of military there.'
 
JimW said:
Analyst at one of the US foreign policy think-tanks: https://carnegiemoscow.org/commentary/86141 reckons it's all a bit prickly from Russia's POV and apparently the intervention isn't popular at home.
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Zerohedge (which has some ties to the Russians ain't happy) Moscow Declares Kazakhstan Unrest "Foreign-Inspired Attempt" Of "Armed & Trained Groups" To Overthrow State | ZeroHedge..


To me, looks like China outlawed very energy intensive cyrptomining. The cyptominiers upped sticks and set oup over the border. The added energy demand had a knock on with regards energy prices causing the upset.
 
All very interesting - there was some discussion last night of Syrian volunteers/mercenaries that Erdogan brought over to help the Azeris in Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh turning up in Kazakhstan. They are Islamic fundamentalists, more or less. Still unclear whether they are under Erdogan's control or freelancing. Some of them, of course, will have been Kazakhs all along.
 
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