If the three Baltic states are treated differently by Russian politicians (some are convinced that they should be conquered again, and some remember about their NATO membership), then all the other post-Soviet states (including five countries of Central Asia) are always “native Russian territories” for the Kremlin and the Russian political system. After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, Kazakhstan played a special role among there.

From the first days of Boris Yeltsin's rule, Russian politicians openly expressed territorial claims both to Ukraine (to Crimea), and to Kazakhstan (to its northern regions adjacent to Russia). Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Konstantin Zatulin, other officials in the Russian Parliament constantly and persistently spread the narrative about the absence of Kazakhstan’s statehood until it was created by the dictator Joseph Stalin in 1936, and that the Russian communists (Bolsheviks) in the 20s and 30s of the XX century, while creating the lands for Kazakhstan, mistakenly cut off the “native Russian lands” in the North.

In April 2022, Tigran Keosayan (husband and associate of the main propagandist of the Russian Federation, Margarita Simonyan) made offensive attacks, by threatening Kazakhstan. In March 2024, a deputy of the RF State Duma, Andrei Lugovoi (GB accuses him of polonium poisoning of fugitive Russian officer Alexander Litvinenko) released a two-part documentary about the alleged spread of Russophobia in Kazakhstan, which was called a “puppet of the Anglo-Saxons.”

On April 5, 2024, another deputy - General Andrey Gurulyov (although not at the official level, but among colleagues from the Parliamentary Committee on Defense) - said that Kazakhstan would be the next victim of Russian aggression. The relevant decision has already been made in the Kremlin, he suggested. Against this background, it should be recalled that on April 2, Gurulyov publicly said that the attack drones against oil refinery and Iranian drone production facilities on the territory of Tatarstan (federal subject of the Russian Federation) were not launched from the Russian-Ukrainian border line, but from the territory of northwestern Kazakhstan.

In this context, it is worth remembering that Kazakhstan is one of the largest states in Eurasia, has very long border lines with Russia and China and, accordingly, is the subject of increased interest from Moscow and Beijing. Kazakhstan is also very rich in natural resources (oil, natural gas, uranium, rare earth metals). After gaining independence in 1991, official Astana set a course towards a multi-vector foreign policy. Kazakhstan joined the Eurasian Economic Union initiated by Moscow, however, the majority of direct investments in the economy of this country are made by the EU, Great Britain, the USA, the People's Republic of China, South Korea and Turkey, and not by Russia (therefore, the economic leverage of the Kremlin is also quite limited). The largest share in Kazakhstan's foreign trade balance belongs to partners from the EU (40 %), not the Russian Federation or the People's Republic of China.

As to security and defense, at the end of 2022 (after Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine, which is clearly not a coincidence), Kazakhstan received documented security guarantees from China.

The competition between Russia and China for geopolitical and geoeconomic influence on Central Asia in general and Kazakhstan in particular is quite intriguing. However, the main conclusion that the countries of the free democratic world should draw is that, while the West shows weakness and indecision (in supporting Ukraine, which alone resists Russia), totalitarian dictatorships are boldly creating plans for further aggression!