Protesters rally in Almaty on January 5, 2022, in a potential crisis for Russia. (ABDUAZIZ MADYAROV/AFP via Getty Images)

KYIV: For the last month, the world has been focused on Russia’s military buildup along its border with Ukraine, wondering if — or when — a full-scale invasion will be ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

But a new, chaotic element has been thrown into the mix, one which could require Russia to abandon any plans for a military invasion of Ukraine in order to deal with another crisis amongst its old vassal states: Kazakhstan.

In the last two weeks, protests over a hike in fuel prices have been amplified into an open public revolt over a much broader set of grievances. Clashes with security forces had resulted in dozens of demonstrators killed, and on Jan. 5, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev requested security assistance from Moscow to help him try and stay in power.

The Kazakh leader has dismissed the legitimacy of any of the demonstrations, stating that “all demands have made in a peaceful form have been heard,” and characterized those remaining on the streets as “20,000 bandits.” When confronted with calls for his government to hold talks with the protest movement his unrepentant response was “What idiocy. What kind of negotiations can you have with criminals? We were dealing with armed and well-prepared bandits, both local and foreign. Bandits and terrorists, who should be destroyed. This will happen in the nearest time.”

And the morning of Jan. 7, Tokayev’s regime began to show signs of desperation — with the president giving a direct order for his security forces and military units to “open fire with lethal force” and without warning against crowds of protestors. The embattled Kazakh leader has continued to label the protestors “bandits and terrorists” and declared that lethal force against them would continue to be used without any warning.

Putin’s Nightmare

The protests in Kazakhstan are the nightmare that the Putin regime fears more than any other threat to its power — a potential repeat of the “color revolutions” that forced pro-Russian governments out of power in Georgia and Ukraine and precipitated the Russian invasion of Crimea, the ongoing “little green men” action in the Donbas, and, indirectly, the current military buildup on the Ukraine border.

How concerned is Russia about seeing a repeat for 2014? This past year’s Zapad-2021 joint exercise between Russia and Belarus was preceded by a separate exercise between the Rosgvardia (Russia’s heavily armed National Guard) and special operations troops belonging to the Federal Security Service (FSB). These were a set of maneuvers specifically ordered to prepare to suppress any internal revolt before it can spread to multiple cities — as is now happening in Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan was ruled for nearly three decades by a former Communist Party boss, Nursultan Nazarbayev, who stepped down from the presidency in 2019, but retained a seat on the nation’s powerful security council. In an attempted to quell protestors, his hand-picked successor and now president, Tokayev, removed Nazarbayev from his position on Jan. 5, while firing other relatives of the former president from powerful posts on the same day. But these changes are seen as too little, too late at this point.

RELATED: NATO’s Big Concern from Russia’s Zapad Exercise: Putin’s Forces Lingering in Belarus

There are multiple concerns for Putin in Kazakhstan. The first, and most immediate, is the speed and ferocity with which the protests have unfolded. Kazakhstan was once thought of as a stable, reliable neighbor — just as Belarus once was before the revolution of 2020 broke out. The Putin regime is likely concerned that domestic unrest in Kazakhstan could jump elsewhere, perhaps even spreading into Russia itself.

“That two post-Soviet states with similarly authoritarian government structures could experience such instability suggests that Russia should at all costs avoid anything that could spark such developments at home,” wrote Russian analyst Andrey Gurkov, in an op-ed for the German-language Deutsche Welle news service. “The fact that thousands of frustrated Kazakhs are now venting their anger should be a warning to the Kremlin. It should compel Russia to consider the domestic implications of a threatened or alleged military operation with which it is currently trying to intimidate the US and NATO.”

There are financial concerns as well. For one, Kazakhstan has been a reliable defense-industrial ally of Moscow, with the country’s armed forces treating Russia as the preferred supplier for its more advanced weapon systems.

Aside from having significant oil and gas reserves and being a member of the OPEC+ alliance, Kazakhstan also produces 40 per cent of the world’s uranium. It supplies numerous nations, including both the US, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and, yes, Russia. Mining operations in Kazakhstan are reported to keep six to seven months’ worth of uranium deliveries in inventory, so no major price spike is anticipated in the near term, but this could all change if the protests continue indefinitely.

Then there is the Baikonur Cosmodrome that was the USSR’s primary space launch facility. Russia has leased its access to the facility through 2050, but that site is rated as secure only as long as the government of Kazakhstan remains pro-Russian. The Cosmodrome is also not the only part of Kazakhstan that is vital to the Russian space program; the steppes to the northeast of Baikonur towards Karaganda are the landing site for Soyuz spacecraft re-entering from the International Space Station. Losing access to these facilities would be a major blow to Russia’s ability to access orbit.

Military Intervention — How Much for How Long

So far, media reports have shown a total force of 2,500 troops from the alliance of ex-Soviet Republics known as the Collective Security Treaty Organisation – with 90 percent of the personnel from Russia – being flown into the capital, Nur-Sultan, as well as its largest city, Almaty. Elite Russian airborne units were sent in to re-capture the international airport in Almaty, which was reported as under their control on Friday morning.

A few small units does not seem likely to help quell the full-scale rebellion that is spreading across the country. That means the question now facing Putin is whether to pull significant military forces away from elsewhere – including, most likely, the Ukrainian border – in order to help out its political partner, or to risk letting Kazakhstan look like a repeat of Ukraine in 2014. If Russian units begin killing Kazakj protestors – troops from what is now a foreign country – “that will not look great for Moscow” tweeted Russian specialist Timothy Garton Ash from London.

However, one political analyst in Moscow told Breaking Defense that the nature of the protests, which are dispersed across cities with little coordination, means a strong military presence may be able to quell the unrest fairly quickly.

Vladimir Putin will have to read carefully in Kazahkstan. ( Ramil Sitdikov – Host Photo Agency via Getty Images )

“The protest seem to be localized and since the Kazakh government has shut down the internet and mobile networks there is very little chance of the different uprisings being able to overcome both Kazakh and Russian armed forces,” the analyst said.

What appears to be a popular revolt “could be over as soon as two weeks. But the aftereffects and resentment could last much longer” — and with them, continued destabilization that could provide a distraction for Putin’s government.

That calculus also gets muddied by the specter of Russian forces being killed in any Kazakh operations, which could send Putin’s approval at home plummeting.

That fear was already prevalent with the Ukraine situation; one Russian defence industry official recently told Breaking Defense that “with these many and growing pressures on the regime, the last addition to this list that Putin needs is a steady parade of body bags coming home from the battlefields in Ukraine. Russian families have lost more than most of those outside of the country can imagine — adding the loss of their sons in a war with Ukraine that has dubious justification could be a tipping point.”

Should troops be seriously harmed, or killed, while attempting to regain control in Kazakhstan, it would create massive pressure on Putin not to launch operations into Ukraine — operations which are guaranteed to come with a high body count, as the Ukrainian military, while not a match for Russian forces head-to-head, is a much stronger foe than the civilian population of Kazakhstan.

Writing for the Atlantic Council, former US Ambassador to both Ukraine and Uzbekistan, John Herbst, commented on Thursday “if the initial CSTO deployment fails, Putin may face a dilemma. Moscow’s pre-buildup situation in Ukraine was a stalemate; in Kazakhstan, Moscow’s position in Central Asia would deteriorate if a popular revolt produces a reform-minded government, or if Tokayev calls on China and the [Shanghai Cooperation Organization] for help to stay in power. The question then becomes: Would Putin pull troops from Ukraine’s border to deal with disorder in Kazakhstan and enhance Russia’s standing in Central Asia? Doing so certainly entails less risk than launching a major conventional military offensive in Ukraine.”

Talks scheduled for Jan. 9-10 between the US and Russia in Geneva to discuss the Ukraine situation will remain unaffected by the unrest in Kazakhstan for now. In Ukraine, however, analysts looking at the situation predict that Russia will now be constrained in its actions against over concerns about stability in Kazakhstan, but in the other former Soviet Central Asian Republics as well.

Another potential wildcard is that two other nations that are competitors for influence in Kazakhstan — Turkey and the PRC — as well as the US could move in if Tokayev’s government falls and a power vacuum emerges. This all detracts from the time and resources Putin has to bring to bear on Ukraine, as well as raises questions about his own system of rule.

Already, pressure is building inside Russia on the situation.

Echo Moskvy, one of the only media outlets in Russia not completely under state control, has been surprisingly critical (given that they are based in the Russian capitol) of both the Kazakh and Russian governments — as well as what it could mean for Putin’s rule. Kazakhstan showcases the typical failings of post-Soviet autocracies, says the outlet, stating “there is no such thing as eternal love or eternal patience.”

“A leader can be popular with the people — and for a very long time — but he inevitably becomes surrounded by a system of thousands of parasites, good-for-nothings, careerists and crooks who start to view the country as their property and the people as their servants. … Soviet people — and in a way that’s what we all still are — are very patient, tough and humble,” the editors wrote in an opinion piece.

“But even among Soviet people, this reservoir of patience is not unlimited. Nazarbayev came to power five years earlier than [Belarus President] Lukashenka and ten years before Putin. Now we can calculate how much time the two have left.”