Ahead of Putin’s visit deputy PM says Kazakhstan isn’t Russia’s “backyard”

Deputy Prime Minister Serik Zhumangarin could hardly hide his annoyance on Tuesday when asked if Kazakhstan was Russia’s “backyard”.

Central Asia was described as “Putin’s backyard” by Bloomberg in a report on French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan last week.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to visit Astana on 9 November.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Zhumangarin said the government was “sick and tired” of the question, when a journalist alleged that Kazakhstan did not seem to be able to defend its interests in relations with Russia, and that therefore the “backyard” comparison might be right.

“What are you talking about? What backyard, whose backyard? It is all just silly talk,” he said.

“Kazakhstan isn’t anyone’s backyard, it is an independent state with a long history.”

Zhumangarin said Kazakhstan and Russia were currently busy solving many “purely practical” economic issues, for example concerning transit of Kazakh goods through Russia.

When pressed by the journalist to explain the known imbalance in Kazakh-Russian trade, and Russia’s protectionist measures regarding Kazakh imports, Zhumangarin said:

“Our country’s interests in the Eurasian [cooperation] format are sacred. We are not a backyard.”

According to President Tokayev’s office, he and Putin will discuss “topical issues of Kazakh-Russian strategic partnership”. They will also take part, virtually, in a forum on Kazakh-Russian regional cooperation that will be held in Kostanay.

Zhumangarin said the forum would focus on “purely economic issues”, mainly agricultural cooperation, and political issues wouldn’t be discussed at all.

“There will be experts, regional officials, we will sign inter-regional agreements, first of all trade and economic ones, which will be beneficial for both sides. Economy first, politics second,” he added.

Commenting on Zhumangarin’s remarks, political observer Gaziz Abishev said that the deputy prime minister had failed to explain to journalists “the complex architecture of Kazakh-Russian economic and political-diplomatic relations”.

But, he said, it was something that government officials must learn to do.

“Otherwise, the chaotic information dynamics will begin to influence the government’s decision-making process,” he said on his Telegram channel.

Notably, Tokayev will be talking to Putin this week on the heels of his meetings, last week, with President Macron and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Given Putin’s international isolation, and Tokayev’s particularly busy diplomatic activity, including with the Russian side, since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Kazakh leader could be playing a role of ‘messenger’ between the Russian president and the rest of the world.   

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