January 15, local time, Belarusian President Lukashenka received officers and soldiers of the Belarusian army who returned from Kazakhstan’s mandate. He said that the threat to Kazakhstan was not an exception and that the CIS countries faced.
According to a report by the Belarusian state news agency on January 15, Lukashenka said in an interview with officers and soldiers, “Everyone knows that the events in our brotherly country are another external attempt to interfere in the internal affairs of independent countries, and the threat to Kazakhstan is also a general threat faced by CIS countries.”
In early January 2022, large-scale protests broke out in Kazakhstan. After residents of the western cities of Danazin and Aktao took to the streets to protest against the doubling of liquefied natural gas prices, the protests quickly spread to places including Almaty, the country’s largest city. Looting incidents occurred in many places, and some militants attacked government agencies and robbed weapons. The Kazakh government declared a state of emergency nationwide from January 5 to 19 and began counter-terrorism operations.
Due to the rapid heating of the situation, Tokayev asked the Russian-led CICA for help on January 5 to overcome the “threat of terrorism”. Russia subsequently dispatched a peacekeeping mission of 2030 soldiers and 250 sets of military equipment to Kazakhstan. The two sides agreed that once the domestic situation returned to stability, the peacekeeping force would end its mission and departure.
On January 15, Sharapayev, director of the Criminal Investigation Bureau of the General Prosecutor’s Office of Kazakhstan, announced to the outside world that according to the information available, the recent riots had killed 225 people, including civilians, armed elements involved in the attack, and 19 police and military personnel.
At present, JIAN troops are withdrawing from Kazakhstan. This dispatch of troops to Kazakhstan is the first time in its 20 years of existence that CSTO has deployed troops to member states.
