During the call, which is said to have been carried out by Russian pranksters who use the aliases ‘Vovan and Lexus’ and in which David Cameron is shown talking on his mobile, the British Foreign Secretary is heard saying: “Kazakhstan are convinced that Putin wants a slice of the north of Kazakhstan”.
A spokesperson for Britain’s Foreign Office said in a statement, “… We made public the fact that this call happened weeks ago, to do the right thing and make sure others were warned of the risk at the earliest opportunity. The foreign secretary understood this was a private call with a Ukrainian politician [ex-President Poroshenko]”.
David Cameron is “regretting his mistake”, the British Foreign Office said in the statement. Thus, it turns out that words about Kazakhstan being convinced that “Putin wants a slice of the north of Kazakhstan” were actually spoken during that call.
Such a view can be construed as a factual reflection of the viewpoint of the international community on the underpinning of the situation between Russia and Kazakhstan amid the war in Ukraine. But the question is how much does it reflect the actual state of things in the context of this matter.
For example, in a recent interview with Vasil Golovanov, Dmitro Gordon, a prominent Ukrainian journalist, interviewer, and politician, while commenting on the expansionist public speech by State Duma Deputy Speaker Pyotr Tolstoy concerning Kazakhstan, suggested that the leader of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev would do well to keep in mind the words of the Russian MP when meeting with the Kremlin master, Vladimir Putin.
In his speech the Russian MP holding a high-ranking position within the legislative branch in Russia, who is also known as having been the head of the Russian delegations to the Parliamentary Assemblies of both the OSCE and the Council of Europe, said that Russia ‘will cease to exist’, if Moscow loses the war in Ukraine. He further stressed if Russia does not ‘close the topic’ of Ukraine, there would be problems ‘with Kazakhstan’, and with some other post-Soviet countries.
The Duma Vice-Speaker continued: “Look at what is happening today in Kazakhstan in terms of building a certain Kazakh state. Look at what kind of national mythology is blooming there regarding independence, regarding the transition to the Latin alphabet”. Pyotr Tolstoy added: “They forgot Alma-Ata (Almaty) is the former city of Verny, our Russian Cossack fortress”.
It would seem, this should have led to a wave of indignation among not only the Kazakhstani journalistic community but also the socio-political groups in Kazakhstan. But it appears that in fact the above words of Tolstoy induced stronger reactions from outside the country, and even in Russia, rather than in Kazakhstan itself. The journalists and public figures from Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Turkey did not fail to begin protecting Kazakhstan and the ethnic Kazakhs against the verbal attacks and territorial claims by Russian MP. They expressed their views explicitly and without concerning themselves about what others might think of their words. Pyotr Tolstoy, according to Anatoly Nesmiyan, a Russian writer and publicist, “described the Kazakh statehood extremely contemptuously as ‘a certain Kazakh state”.
In Kazakhstan itself, meanwhile, the major media outlets, as far as can be judged, were limited to publishing information reports about Pyotr Tolstoy’s interview with Komsomol’skaya Pravda-Radio and asking Kazakh MPs to provide comments on the verbal attacks and territorial claims by Russian MP. The latter ones also seemed to be tending to keep a low profile in this case. Commenting to journalists on May 30, Kazakh Senate Chairman Maulen Ashimbayev asked them ‘not to aggravate’ the situation, stating, “In my view, this is the opinion of a private person and does not express the official opinion of the State Duma”.
Here is how Zerkalo.az, an Azerbaijani media outlet, characterizes Astana’s official reaction to the words of Pyotr Tolstoy: “I don’t know whether official Kazakhstan will respond to the crazy [verbal] attacks of Pyotr Tolstoy, at least so far there has been no reaction from the country’s Foreign Ministry. But then a completely toothless comment appeared in the press from one of the deputies of the Kazakh parliament, Murat Abenov, who very diplomatically and in a soft form commented on the scandalous words of the Russian Vice-Speaker, describing them merely “thoughtless ones”… Tengrinews quotes Abenov as saying, “I would like to call on my Russian colleagues, representing the multi-ethnic people of Russia, to care about the friendship and cooperation between the two neighboring countries. We do not want Kazakhstan-Russia friendship to be derailed by such irresponsible statements”.
Zerkalo.az goes on to say: “Excuse me, but what kind of friendship of peoples and state interests are there in a State where the ruler himself openly declares rights to neighboring countries and dreams of reviving the USSR by any means”. According to the Azerbaijani media outlet, the expressions ‘narrow-eyed people’, ‘black-assed people’, and ‘sheep’ accompany all Muslims in the Russian state. Here, however, it is necessary to clarify: the expression ‘narrow-eyed ones’ is usually applied by the Russians to the ethnic Kazakhs and their kind but in no case to the Azerbaijanis and other people of Caucasian origin.
Anyway, those verbal attacks and territorial claims by the Russian MP did not cause any meaningful discussion in the media and among active members of the social and political community in Kazakhstan. One may wonder why things happened the way they did. The matter here is that it is obviously difficult for an outsider to understand the underpinnings of what is happening in the social and political life of Kazakhstan. With the West and its allies being somewhat new to the undercurrents of Russian-Kazakh controversies, rather ignorant to the complex clandestine history within the relationship between Russian power and Kazakh elites, and without any specific knowledge of how Russian reflexive control works in the Kazakh media sphere and among the nation’s social and political communities, probably it’s not always easy for their observers and experts focusing on Central Asia to discover the true explanation for these or those relevant events and developments.
What can one say in this regard about the Western authors of, say, the Diplomat, an international online news magazine actively covering Kazakhstani events and developments, if even Vitaly Portnikov, a Ukrainian journalist and political expert, who is well-versed in political developments across the former Soviet sphere, sometimes surprises with his unawareness of the Kazakhs’ actual sentiments towards neighboring great powers? Here’s what he said while answering the question ‘Is Russia planning an attack on other countries after this war, for example, on Kazakhstan or Georgia?’: Should this happen, Kazakhstan ‘will count on China’s support’.
Had Vitaly Portnikov been able to read the press in the Kazakh language, he would probably have been aware of the fallacy of such an opinion.
A centuries-old, symbolic depiction of South Korea, as is well known, portrays it as a shrimp between two whales, China and Japan. There is a Korean proverb that states: “When whales fight, a shrimp’s back is broken”. Both notions may be seen by the Kazakhs as equally attributable to their way of thinking and country. There is a Kazakh proverb that states: “When two bulls fight, a fly is killed”. And Kazakhstan, being sandwiched between Russia and China, might be feeling the way similar to that experienced by Korea. Some people may probably think such a suggestion is an exaggeration.
Anyway, here are some pieces of evidence so that one can judge for oneself how believable that is. The Abai online media outlet, in an analytical piece entitled “Chinese sites: Balkhash is our land…”, citing the relevant sources, reported that “the Chinese media are tirelessly trying to show our vast steppe east of Lake Balkhash on maps as a part of their country”. It then quoted some Chinese source (on Baidu, July 29th, 2023) as saying: “In the past, it was called Ibo hai and it was the place where our people lived in the northwest. In the mid and late 19th century it was forcibly taken away by the Russian Empire…”.
Globalnews.kz, in an article entitled “Does China lay claim to Balkhash? Kazakhstan is urged to appeal to the UN” which represents an overview of the above analytical piece, said: “While Kazakhstan is making concessions, China is tirelessly trying to take away the vast steppe east of Lake Balkhash”. It then quoted the same Chinese source (on Baidu, July 29th, 2023) as saying: “If we want this territory back, we must first rely on historical and political factors to accurately study [the situation with] Balkhash, as times change and so does national sovereignty. We are engaged in serious negotiations about rights and interests”.
So, if we are to believe even some of the above, it seems that the Chinese kind of lay claim to the territory of Kazakhstan east of Lake Balkhash, or, in other words, up to Lake Balkhash.
Now let’s see what the lands in Kazakhstan Russian expansionists are laying claim to… Yes, you’ve guessed them correctly. They are laying claim to almost the whole rest of the Kazakhstani territory that lies north and west of Lake Balkhash. Below are some proof of that.
Here is an article by Oleg Maslov and Alexander Prudnik, well-known Russian political experts, entitled ‘Kazakhstan at the beginning of the 21st century is like Poland before 1939. Partition of Kazakhstan, or the new Molotov-Ribbentrop plan’ and appeared on Polit.nnov.ru back in 2007. It said: “The crucial question today is about where the line of division of Kazakhstan between Russia and China will be drawn. It is extremely important for China to have access to the Caspian Sea, so one can predict that the new border between Russia and China will pass along the Emba River at the 47th parallel north. The partition of Kazakhstan along the Emba River and at the 48th parallel north is unacceptable for Russia because of Baikonur [cosmodrome]. Other, more flexible partition configurations are possible as well. Everything depends on mutual agreements between the leaderships of China and Russia”.
Yes, it’s been a long time since the appearance of the above article. However, it would be naive to believe that its authors have been the only ones with this attitude towards the future of Kazakhstan. Anyway, their idea has fallen on fertile ground and taken good root in Russia. Here is a more recent example of this. Eadaily, in an article by Albert Hakobyan (Urumov) entitled ‘Who did give the go-ahead for the “the Russian question” to be finally resolved’, said: “The main strategic task [for Kazakhstan] set by Tokayev is as follows: “We must ensure the territorial integrity of Kazakhstan through the completion of the construction of a mono-ethnic state”. In other words: “We are getting away from Moscow!”… So, there are two options for Russia. The first is to move the actual State border of the Russian Federation moving southward [at the expense of Kazakhstan] as far as possible – along the line: ‘Balkhash – Baikonur – Bekdash’. The second is to federalize Kazakhstan through the creation of two super-regions – ‘the Northern’ and ‘the South’ along the line ‘Ural – Ishim – Irtysh”.
As you can see, Baikonur is mentioned in that case, too. What’s next? A rather direct has been State Duma deputy Mikhail Delyagin, when speaking on this matter: “Unless Northern Kazakhstan, along with Central and Western Kazakhstan, rejoins their Homeland [Russia] as a result of the upcoming events, it will be … well, like ditching Donbas [non-admission of the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic to Russia]”. In other words, he is exactly laying claim to almost the rest of the Kazakhstani territory that lies north and west of Lake Balkhash.
There are a lot of such statements lately, and they are appearing regularly in the Russian media. There seem to be some projects behind all this, developed by the Russian strategists, which provide Moscow’s interference in Kazakhstan’s territories.
In light of all the foregoing, the question is, what is to expect from the future?