US questions Russian troops presence in Kazakhstan

BoomRadioNG | January 8, 2022

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has questioned Kazakhstan’s decision to seek Russian military aid to deal with an ongoing wave of violent unrest.

Dozens of people have been killed in protests triggered by a rise in fuel prices, but Blinken said the US believes that the Kazakh government can deal with the protests itself.

He told reporters that it was unclear why the deployment was happening.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken\
Published by the European Commission at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuJcQrkKaB4 under Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed), CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Blinken warned that “one lesson of recent history is that once Russians are in your house, it’s sometimes very difficult to get them to leave”.

He said; “It would seem to me that the Kazakh authorities and government certainly have the capacity to deal appropriately with protests to do so in a way that respects the rights of protesters while maintaining law and order,”

“So it’s not clear why they feel the need for any outside assistance. So we’re trying to learn more about it.”

The first of about 2,500 Russian-led troops have arrived in Kazakhstan and on Friday assisted Kazakh forces in retaking the airport from protesters.

Paul Ayorinde