 Welcome to another We Are Capsule for the Shankar AAS Academy. Today we'll talk about the crisis in Kazakhstan. The crisis in Ukraine is still raging and we have no idea what it will lead to. Fortunately, the Russians and the Americans are talking and there is no likelihood of a flare up. But the expectation of the concern is that the Russians might stay a coup inside Ukraine and create a structure which would be inimical to the interests of Ukraine itself, that is the fear. But let's hope that that will be settled peacefully. Surprisingly, the rebellion has broken out in Kazakhstan, which is one of the largest central Asian countries. It was the largest Soviet with great resources in terms of uranium, in terms of petroleum and many other minerals and other resources. It has now 40% of the global uranium deposits and 3% of petroleum deposits and the per capita income in 2020 was 9,000 US dollars. So significant country, fairly prosperous, sparsely populated with very rich resources. And fairly peaceful. That was the situation of Kazakhstan when it became an independent country 30 years ago. But one thing that happened in the case of several of the Soviet republics which became independent was that in the guise of new democratic leaders, some of the old leaders continued. But they persisted with their dictatorial attitudes and administrative style. And one of them was the leader of Kazakhstan, Noor Sultan Nazarbayev. He was already a leader in the Soviet Republic, but then when the country became independent, he assumed charge and ruled the country for 30 years. And the process he imposed a kind of dictatorial regime and not a democratic regime in Kazakhstan. And there were very many issues relating to freedom, human rights, discrimination, etc. And it took a long time for it to materialize and the people to realize that this was a dangerous situation. And in 2019 there was a pricing against him within his own party as well as outside saying that he must be removed. So he was removed, but the new president who took over Mr. Tokaev was a confident of the previous president. And though nominally he became president of Kazakhstan, Mr. Nazarbayev continued to hold several positions in the state, particularly related to security. This was not a happy arrangement everybody knew, but still since President Tokaev was very close to him, he wanted to give him importance and power in the new structure. And this has been the ruin of the new president because the previous one continued to exert influence and he had to become very unpopular. This is the background of the present situation which developed in late 2021 and early 2022. The population structure was about 35 lakhs of Russian migrants live in Kazakhstan. And this was something that they had done at the Soviet time itself because in order to integrate these republics, they sent a lot of Russians into these republics to make substantive minorities so that they protected the unity of the Soviet Union. So many Russians were sent to these republics to act as some kind of a unifying factor for the Soviet Union. And Kazakhstan became independent, they continued because there was no threat to them and Kazakhstan and Russia had excellent relations. And therefore these Russians continued their happily and there was no real conflict. Russia has a border of about 7600 kilometers of the border, but there were no armed forces there either of Kazakhstan or of Russia because it was a very peaceful border. And there was no need for any deployment of forces on the border and that was another positive element. But when the situation deteriorated mainly because of the economic situation and rise in prices consequent upon the COVID-19 which has ravaged the whole world. So Kazakhstan was no exception and therefore the damage caused by COVID-19 which is raging in Kazakhstan even now had created a lot of problems for the people. And they started attributing all these economic problems particularly rise in the price of petrol. There was so much of petroleum but the ordinary people could not afford the prices in the market. And Mr. Tokave was not able to control the consequences of this and the economic collapse as it were because of the price of oil and other products. And the lowering standards of life and also foreign direct investment came down constantly. Foreign direct investment came mainly from Russia of course and also from Europe. If you look at the map and look at Kazakhstan you will find Kazakhstan is as big as the whole of Western Europe. So it's not small and with this possibility of exploitation of resources a large number of European Union countries were investing in Kazakhstan. So into the situation broke up this rebellion and very quickly spread to the whole country. And of course the numbers are not large by the standards of these days in other countries. In the rebellion 98 policemen were killed, 26 protesters were also killed and about 353 people injured. And the Kazakhstan forces of this police or the army was not able to control the rebellion. So it reached a point when the President Tokave turned to the Russian president and requested for assistance. In fact there is a treaty between the two countries, not only between the two but Russia with several of these East Asian Central Asian republics, Central Asian countries. An agreement for mutual defense and it's not been used very much but in this particular case Russia thinking about what was happening in Ukraine perhaps immediately sent troops into Kazakhstan. And the number of troops arriving Kazakhstan has not been announced but they suppressed the rebellion very quickly and brought about peace. President Tokave announced that the Russian troops will be leaving as soon as the situation is back to normal but there is no sign as yet of them leaving and that has raised a question. So the grievances against President Tokave has increased that now he has also brought the Russian forces into the country and so he is under tremendous pressure to bring about more changes. He has promised reform but there is no sign of abatement either of the pandemic or of the economic problems which have engulfed Kazakhstan. So Kazakhstan is in crisis on various factors including the presence of the Russian troops and the Americans have been expressing concern that Russians may not leave Kazakhstan, may not leave at all. So the fear is also among the in Russia because of the open border of 7600 kilometers there could be refugees from Kazakhstan entering Russia because of the economic situation and there could be also spread of COVID-19. So that's a concern that Russia has and therefore they may have strengthened the border though may not have deployed forces but they have started monitoring the border to make sure that the problems in Kazakhstan do not spread into Russia which is a possibility. And the European Union is concerned that their investments may not bring the benefits and they cannot just pull out like that in the current situation and therefore European Union is also very concerned. In all this is also China. Kazakhstan had maintained good relations with China also even though their primary loyalty was to Russia and with China-Russia relationship improving in the last couple of years the Chinese were quite comfortable there. And they were of course involved in the exploitation of resources because this area you need the heavy investment to get the resources out of the earth and so China was involved there are other countries also Japan and the European countries and others. But China is also a little bit concerned about the situation because if it deteriorates China will also have problems there. So the president of China has written a letter to President Tokayev suggesting that he should handle the political and economic situation effectively and also hinting that if there is any help needed China will be happy to extend that. Because I don't think Kazakhstan will ask for it because they do not want to bring China and Russia into their soil with these possibilities of complications arising out of this. So both are big powers and both of them in the same area may not be very helpful to the country. And there are also reports that the Chinese foreign minister discussed the matter with the foreign minister of Russia. So we have even seen this new dimension of Russian interest and involvement and therefore China has also said notice on Russia to be careful and not to annex Kazakhstan that like they are trying to do with Ukraine. But there is no signs like that because the situation in Kazakhstan is somewhat different and Russia has no such ambitions. As of now provided the trouble doesn't spread. The allegation may be raised by the Kazakhstan president that some foreign Muslim terrorists participate in the rebellion was of some concern though this has not been established. And also was that there were slogans raised against the United States. India as you know has good relations with us all the Central Asian countries and we are members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization together with China. And we have particular interest in the Central Asian countries and Kazakhstan was of course the most is the most important of them. And this interest has increased because of the situation of Kazakhstan because the Central Asian countries have certain identity of views with India on what is happening in Afghanistan. You may remember that a meeting of the representatives of these countries has held in Delhi and they all came and discussed certain matters relating to Afghanistan. And they agreed with us that there should be a representative peaceful government in Afghanistan. And terrorists should be removed from the government and peace should be established and independence of Afghanistan should be reestablished. But at the same time these countries have contacts with the Taliban and like us and there was some expectation that they might help India to have a dialogue with the Taliban to normalize relations in the long run. But India and these countries have cooperated in providing humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan even in the current situation. And more recently all of them were invited all the heads of state of these five countries were invited to the Republic Day which is to take place in the next couple of days. But the situation in India nor in these countries will permit such a visit and it has been confirmed that they will not come to Delhi for the Republic Day but will hold a virtual summit with our Prime Minister one of these days maybe on the Republic Day itself. So there was anxiety as to whether Mr. Thokai will be able to come in the new circumstances but that problem has been solved because of the COVID-19 which started the problem in the first place. So India is not directly involved in this. We are not present in the country except some experts etc. But this can be of concern to us and we are observing the situation very closely. There are so many interpretations about what is happening and one of the comments I heard was that this is a quarrel among thieves. Because the leadership of Kazakhstan including the previous president and present president and they all seem to be involved in some kind of a conspiracy or some kind of racketeering etc. These are just reports we cannot give any credence to that. So it doesn't look as though the situation will normalize very fast because of all these elements the Chinese influence the Americans wanting the Russians to leave immediately the presence of foreign terrorists and the concern about Afghanistan. So all this is a rather dangerous mix in Kazakhstan which was a peaceful and prosperous country. So there is reason for everyone to be concerned but unlike Ukraine the situation is more stable and Russia's intentions are honorable. And it is expected that they would leave Kazakhstan as soon as the situation permits. On that score also there is some concern in the United States because with all the European Union's investments they don't want Russia to accept too much of authority inside Kazakhstan. So everyone is watching with concern but with less concern than about Ukraine because in Ukraine some war could take place but here there is no such danger. But this is a situation that you should follow because it is a live situation and you will have news coming out of Afghanistan in the near future. Thank you very much. So in the United States people are comparing to the Ukrainian situation to that of 1962 between US and Soviet Union in Cuba very highly tense situation and it could have broken into a nuclear war but I don't think it is that serious. But Ukraine has made it very clear that if Russia has made it very clear that Ukraine joins NATO they will prevent it in some way or the other and US has said that no such intervention will be permitted. So there is a certain amount of ultimatum involved but no time based ultimatum. No, 30 years of misrule is the main issue and is continuing influence in the present administration and the gas prices and the deterioration of the economy and even the COVID itself are considered to be flowing from the misrule of 30 years. And that is the question that everybody is asking. That is because there has been some, that's why someone said that this is a quarrel between the thieves. It has not been explained as to why it happened and the rebellion took place because the people were not convinced that this was not artificial. Well this is the question we ask whenever anything happens anywhere in the world but we are not a superpower going around to solve the big problems of the other countries. And we have good relations with them and beneficial relations and we will try to maintain it without intervening and we can also depend on Russia because our good relations with that country that will not be dragged into this. So we will simply wish them well because they were not expecting something like this. They should have expected though because the previous president was ousted because of this. But obviously they were optimistic and did not expect that this would happen. So it will affect all of us as I mentioned, Kazakhstan more than anybody else can also spill over to Russia. It can affect the business of the European Union. It can create complications for China and also to India because of the interruption in the commerce that we have with them. We have even received uranium supplies from Kazakhstan and that also is a factor. Well external attack probably that is the reason why the Kazakhstan is alleging that there were foreign terrorists involved in the demonstration. That may be a technical explanation. The truth is that there is internal revolt on account of the poor administration and perhaps corruption. But the deployment of the CTO forces was possible because of this allegation. And that may be the excuse that the Russians used in order to go to the support of Kazakhstan and the CSTO. I thought we had spoken about it earlier. It is simple as that. It was noticed that for some months early this year and late last year, Russians were amassing troops on the borders of Ukraine. And this had reached a very high level and there was concern all over the world. And it was clarified by Russia that they had no intention to invade Ukraine, their respective Ukraine sovereignty. But there is a certain red line which is that Ukraine should not be admitted as a member of NATO. Because this was an understanding there at the time of the breakup of the Soviet Union and informal kind of understanding that these republics will not become part of the western alliances. But some like the Baltic republics became part of the western alliance. But that Russia did not mind too much because it's a bit far away from their borders. But in the case of Ukraine, Russia is very keen and it's a large country, rich in resources too. And they did not want it to fall into, they were discussing trade packs with the European Union, even that they resisted. And then this whole question of NATO membership. Because nobody is saying that they will take them to NATO. But the intentions are clear and no assurance is being given by the Americans or the others that will not happen. So there is a crisis point there. But hopefully it will be resolved because there's not the time when anybody wants to go to war. So there is no fear that war will break out there. But the tensions still persists as long as the Russian troops are still on the border. But the Russians are of course saying that they are in their own country. They are not immediate. But the president of Ukraine has been saying that it is not only a matter of Russian troops but also Russian interests operating inside Ukraine. In fact, he had announced that in December he announced that there could be a coup, a civilian coup. Or some rich people in Ukraine favoring the Russians and trying to establish authority in Ukraine. This is true because there are certain parts of Ukraine which are under the influence of Russia. And that is the fear they have. But all these still exist. No situation has not changed but hopefully it will be resolved. Thank you. Bye-bye.