Russia Deploys Troops to End Kazakhstan's Deadly Uprising

Russian paratroopers have been deployed to Kazakhstan after protests turned violent, with dozens of people estimated to have been killed in what appears to be open street fighting in Almaty, the Central Asian country’s largest city.

Some social media posts appear to show violent clashes between security forces and protesters, some of whom are armed with looted weapons.

Dozens of protesters and at least 13 members of the security forces have been killed, with hundreds wounded, according to state media, after protests turned violent on Wednesday.

The Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), an alliance of former Soviet states dominated by Russia, said it had dispatched a multinational peacekeeping force to Kazakhstan to protect government buildings and facilities from the demonstrators. 

The internet has been mostly shut down and the country’s main airport in Almaty is closed after protestors overran it, making exact details of the fighting and conditions on the ground difficult to verify, with most information coming from state TV in Kazakhstan or Russia.

The protests were sparked by a rise in fuel prices but demonstrators are now demanding the end of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s rule of the energy-rich country, which is the size of Western Europe.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has strongly backed the leaders of CSTO states in Belarus, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and, when his allies were in power, Ukraine, in an effort to keep them stable and loyal to Moscow. 

One stated goal of the uprising in Kazakhstan has been a break of ties with Moscow, according to some protesters. Putin has been willing to send troops in the past to prevent conflicts in CSTO states, most recently in Belarus last year, and to Moldova to protect ethnic Russian communities in 1994.

It is the first time that the protection clause of the CSTO treaty has been enacted and the alliance said that Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan would participate but as of Thursday night it appeared  that only Russian paratroopers had immediately deployed to meet up with a contingent of Russian “peacekeeping” troops already stationed in the country. 

Tokayev called the protesters “a band of terrorists” in his request to the CSTO for assistance, according to the New York Times. By Thursday morning, social media and Russian news outlets were showing what appeared to be Russian paratroopers joining the battle, including clearing Almaty’s airport and city hall.

The uprising started on the 2nd of January in the western city of Zhanaozen after fuel prices more than doubled in the wake of the government lifting subsidies, but within days had spread to the centre of Almaty, the largest city and former capital.

Khabar-24, the state television station, reported that two security officers had been “beheaded” by protesters, 13 others were killed and 300+ wounded in clashes, according to  state media posts on the Telegram social media site.

Other activist-linked Telegram channels reported that protesters had looted military equipment, including rocket-propelled grenades and rifles, and broadcast hundreds of dead bodies said to have been killed by security forces.