Renewed clashes and gunfire continue to rock Kazakhstan's largest city, Almaty, as police, bolstered by troops from a Russian-led military alliance, try to squelch protests in the Central Asian nation's deadliest uprising in the three decades since it declared independence from the Soviet Union.
RFE/RL journalists in Almaty said security forces, some in armored vehicles, opened fired on the demonstrators on January 6 in Republican Square. According to Aigerim Tuleuzhanova, a representative of the group for the establishment of the Democratic Party, most of those who were in the square were unarmed young people.
Earlier, some witnesses reported an explosion and gunfire near the square.
Troops from the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) were sent to Kazakhstan overnight as violence spread since late on January 4 following protests sparked in part by a spike in fuel prices.
Police said early on January 6 that they had killed “dozens” of protesters and detained around 2,000 people over the past day in violent clashes that prompted President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev to ask the CSTO, a military alliance comprised of several former Soviet republics in the region along with Russia, to enter the country to help “stabilize” the situation.
The Interior Ministry said that 18 security personnel have died in clashes with protesters, with hundreds more injured.
Much of the situation on the ground on January 6 was unclear as the government blocked the Internet and hampered other telecommunication methods.
Still, images of burnt-out cars littering the streets and of buildings, some with smoke billowing out of the windows and pockmarked facades, were emerging to show the depth of the violence that has wracked the country.
Toqaev has blamed foreign-trained "terrorist" gangs but he has also offered no evidence of an international link to the disorder in the post-Soviet Central Asian republic.
The situation in the oil-rich country has sparked international concern, with governments from Washington, Moscow, the United Kingdom and others calling for restraint on all sides.
The U.S. said it was closely monitoring reports about the deployment of troops from the Russian-led CSTO to Kazakhstan and has questions about whether they were legitimately invited to the country.
"We're closely monitoring reports that the Collective Security Treaty Organization have dispatched its collective peacekeeping forces to Kazakhstan," White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at a news briefing on January 6.
"We have questions about the nature of this request and whether it was a legitimate invitation or not. We don't know at this point," Psaki added.
Earlier, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for a “peaceful resolution” to the unrest in the country while the European Union's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, expressed “grave concern” about the situation, insisting civilian rights had to be protected and sounding a warning over foreign military involvement.
In a call with his Kazakh counterpart Mukhtar Tileuberdi, Blinken "reiterated the United States' full support for Kazakhstan's constitutional institutions and media freedom and advocated for a peaceful, rights-respecting resolution to the crisis," the State Department said in a brief statement.
"Rights and security of civilians must be guaranteed. External military assistance brings back memories of situations to be avoided," Borrell wrote on Twitter.
“EU is ready to support in addressing this crisis,” he added.
For her part, UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet urged all sides in Kazakhstan to refrain from violence.
"People have the right to peaceful protest and freedom of expression. At the same time, protesters, no matter how angry or aggrieved they may be, should not resort to violence against others," Bachelet said in a January 6 statement, as she called for the release of all those detained solely for exercising their right to peaceful protest.
A spokesman for U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said London was "concerned about the violent clashes" and "following developments closely."
"We are urging against further escalation and want to see a peaceful resolution," the spokesman told reporters on January 6.
The wave of protests erupted in the western region of Mangystau four days ago over a sudden hike in prices for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), a popular fuel used in vehicles in the tightly controlled, oil-rich country.
But they have spread to cities and towns across Kazakhstan and broadened to include political grievances.
Russian airborne troops are being transferred to Kazakhstan as part of a CSTO Collective Peacekeeping Force, the organization said in a statement on its website, adding that leading units from Russia’s contingent “have already begun to fulfill the assigned tasks.”
The speed at which the Russian troops arrived on the scene in Kazakhstan was seen by some analysts as another sign of the Kremlin's strategy to act quickly to safeguard its sphere of influence in the ex-Soviet Union.
In the past 15 months Russia has backed Alyaksandr Lukashenka, the authoritarian ruler of Belarus who has faced a massive popular uprising, and acted as an intermediary to stop a war between Azerbaijan and Armenia. It also continues to support separatists in a war in eastern Ukraine and has recently massed tens of thousands of troops near the border with Ukraine, raising fears of a possible invasion.
Timothy Ash, senior strategist at Bluebay Asset Management, said the popular protests in Kazakhstan are a “threat” to Russian President Vladimir Putin and “an affront to his vision of autocracy and sovereign democracy.”
“He hates colored revolutions as these make him fearful that Russians could in turn rise up to overthrow him,” Ash said in a note to his subscribers, adding that Putin also fears “the prospect of a more liberal Kazakhstan turning to the West – he still sees Kazakhstan as falling under the Russian strategic umbrella.”
The CSTO’s Collective Peacekeeping Force will also include troops from the other CSTO members: Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.
The CSTO statement said the main tasks of the force will be “the protection of important state and military facilities, assistance to the forces of law and order of the Republic of Kazakhstan in stabilizing the situation and returning it to the legal field.”
On January 5, Toqaev sacked the government, declared a nationwide state of emergency, and appealed for intervention by the CSTO after thousands of anti-government protesters clashed with police and stormed government buildings.
Angry demonstrators, some of whom were armed with rubber truncheons, sticks, and shields, set fire to a presidential residence and the mayor’s office in Almaty, where protesters also seized control of the airport, prompting the temporary suspension of all flights.
Video recordings circulated on social media purportedly showed several bodies of protesters on the streets. RFE/RL could not independently verify the authenticity of the videos.
Police engaged in pitched battles with the protesters, using tear gas, stun grenades, and rubber bullets to try to disperse the crowds, but were largely unsuccessful.
The operations of RFE/RL's Kazakh Service have been restricted, and its journalists said both Internet and telephone services had deteriorated markedly.
State television reported on January 6 that the National Bank of Kazakhstan has suspended all financial institutions.
In a major move to distance himself from the past, Toqaev on January 5 removed his predecessor, 81-year-old Nursultan Nazarbaev, from the powerful post of head of the country's security council and relieved a longtime Nazarbaev associate of his post as chairman of the National Security Committee (KNB).
Nazarbaev had retained wide authority through the post since stepping down in 2019 as president after three decades in power, the last Soviet-era Communist Party boss still ruling an ex-Soviet state.
Copyright (c) 2015. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.
