As Russia masses troops to threaten Ukraine in order to bring it back into the Russian empire, another part of the quasi-Russian empire in Kazakhstan goes wobbly.
Unrest in Kazakhstan broke out:
The protests that began over the weekend in the western Kazakhstan town of Zhanaozen have rolled into their third day and are now spreading across the country.
The demands of the crowds are sounding increasingly political, according to scant reports from the region.
Seriously, "almost complete collapse of state authority" levels of unrest.
It is a battleground between Russian and Chinese influence. Which makes it a sensitive region for Moscow. Could the widespread unrest in Kazakhstan save Ukraine from being attacked?
The CSTO did not confirm the size of the Russian deployment to Kazakhstan, but local media reported as many as 3,000 troops had been sent to back up the Kazakh forces.
The Russian intervention has a lot to do:
Police in the main city Almaty said they had killed dozens of rioters overnight into the early hours of Thursday morning. The authorities said at least 18 members of the security forces had died, including two found decapitated. More than 2,000 people had been arrested.
After a night of running confrontations between protesters and troops on the streets, a presidential residence in the city and its mayor's office were both ablaze, and burnt out cars littered the city, Reuters journalists said.
This is the first official "peacekeeping" mission of Russia's new Warsaw Pact, the CSTO:
The statement did not specify how many soldiers would be mobilized, though Armenia, which chairs its rotating presidency, deployed 70 soldiers.
Some troops have already started operating in Kazakhstan, the statement said, and Russian state-run outlets posted videos of Russian troops boarding military aircraft and others driving to Kazakhstan in armored vehicles.
One day, China might be the one to send in troops:
Right now, Russia exerts influence in their former Central Asian provinces through the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) ...
What happens when China enters these areas with money and large hopes to earn a return? Won't China try to earn profits from where they are rather than abandon their investments? Won't that come at Russia's expense?
Will these Central Asian states reliant on Russia find that China is a useful counter-weight to Russia and allow these states to separate their policies from Russia's objectives?
So that's some background for this Russian warning:
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday that Kazakhstan could solve its own problems and it was important that no one interfered from the outside, RIA news agency reported.
The story makes it seem like the West is the target of the warning. Yeah, no.
In 2014, Russia failed to send in the troops to save their compliant local ruler in Ukraine who was chased out by the Ukrainian people. Russia could only send in troops to salvage some of the key territory in Crimea.
It looks like Russia decided to act early in Kazakhstan to avoid making the same mistake twice. And quite probably to forestall the Chinese from taking their shot at dominance.
We'll see if Russia simply made an entirely new mistake, instead.
I do not like living in interesting times.
UPDATE: Related thoughts on the crisis, China, Ukraine, and relevant factors.
And I did say I didn't mind Putin being distracted by Kazakhstan ambitions long ago. Kazakhstan must beware Russian "help."
UPDATE: Russia may yet escape a distraction on its soft underbelly:
Security forces appeared to have reclaimed the streets of Kazakhstan's main city on Friday after days of violence, and the Russian-backed president said he had ordered his troops to shoot to kill to put down a countrywide uprising.
Especially if state security forces don't wobble, this may just be a major spasm of anger rather than a threat to the state.
UPDATE: It is true that Russia's intervention in Kazakhstan isn't big enough to affect potential operations against Ukraine. Yet. Is Russia confident this show of force is enough? Also, if Russia invades Ukraine, will that inspire Kazakhs to worry about Russian troops and actually inspire more resistance? This is definitely an unwelcome complication from Moscow's point of view.
