RUSSIA'S WAR AGAINST UKRAINE AND THE FUTURE OF KAZAKHSTAN'S FOREIGN POLICY.

• Author: Jones, Pauline

INTRODUCTION

At a minimum, Russia's war against Ukraine has created deep fissures in its relations with the other Soviet successor states in Eurasia. Most notable among these is Kazakhstan. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Kazakhstani-Russian relationship has been bolstered by shared interests in maintaining open trade and transit corridors, increasing regional security, and constraining ethnonationalism. All of these are threatened by the war in Ukraine and its consequences. While this is not the first time that being tied to Russia has exposed Kazakhstan's economic vulnerability, the war in Ukraine has signaled that Russia is an unreliable and potentially dangerous economic partner. The war has also revealed both the weakness of Russia's military and the precarity of being aligned with it--especially after Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev's decision to mobilize Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) troops, dominated by Russian forces, to contain mass protests in Kazakhstan in January 2022. Moreover, the mass influx of Russians fleeing the war could upend Kazakhstan's long-standing approach to inter-ethnic relations.

Although these fissures are unlikely to result in a clean break between Kazakhstan and Russia, they are likely to transform the nature of this relationship. Relations between the two countries have never been based on an equal partnership. Russia has always considered itself the regional hegemon and President Vladimir Putin designed both economic and collective security institutions in Central Asia to secure its hegemony. The reality is that Russia's dominance was already in decline prior to its renewed aggression against Ukraine in February 2022. The longer the war lasts, the more acute this decline will become. In addition to shifting the balance of power between Russia and its Central Asian neighbors, a protracted war may lead China to recalibrate its own interests in the region. Whereas previously China could rely on Russia to provide regional security while expanding its own economic influence in Central Asia, an enervated Russia makes this division of labor much less viable. Nonetheless, the appeal of a prolonged war in Ukraine may be increasing for China.

KAZAKHSTANI-RUSSIAN RELATIONS BEFORE THE WAR

In the economic sphere, the two main institutions through which Russia under Putin has exerted influence in Kazakhstan are the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC). While serving both countries' interests, these institutions have also increased Kazakhstan's reliance on Russia for trade and transit prior to the war.

The EAEU, which also includes Armenia, Belarus, and Kyrgyzstan, was established on January 1, 2015, after several false starts, with the aim of creating a common market by reducing trade barriers, standardizing regulations, and coordinating economic policies across its member states. (1) Although Russia was by far the largest economy in the EAEU at this time, and the Russian ruble has served as the organization's primary currency, the economic benefits for Russia were minor compared to those for the other members, in terms of the volume of trade. (2) Rather, the benefits of integration have been primarily political--the EAEU maintains Central Asia's dependence on Russia's economy, thereby increasing Russia's leverage over its respective governments, and provides a potential counterweight to China and the West. (3) For Kazakhstan in particular, membership in the EAEU has significantly increased trade with Russia, making it more reliant on both Russian exports and imports, while not significantly increasing its trade volume with other EAEU members. (4)

The CPC began operating in 2001, though its origins go back much further to 1992, and is composed of multiple international investors, including the Russian companies Lukoil, Rosneft, and Transneft. It is crucial for Kazakhstan because it is the main export route connecting Tengiz, in the western province of Atyrau and its largest producing oil fields, with Novorossiysk, the Russian port on the Black Sea. Oil and gas account for approximately 35 percent of Kazakhstan's GDP and 75 percent of its exports. About 80 percent of its oil and gas is exported through Russia via the CPC. (5) Putin has used the EAEU to reinforce this dependence by pressuring Kazakhstan to agree to harmonized oil and gas standards, enabling Russia to set prices for Kazakhstan's energy exports.

Russia has also forged and led the key institution responsible for providing regional security, the CSTO, which includes all the EAEU member states as well as Tajikistan. The CSTO's initial purpose was to promote military cooperation by developing a common counterterrorism force-mainly to combat the threat posed by Central Asia's porous border with Afghanistan--by holding joint training exercises, sharing equipment, and coordinating defense policies. Like NATO, its charter stipulates, in Article 4, that all members are obliged to jointly defend one another against an armed attack. Yet, despite its collective approach and rotating presidency, Russia is clearly the driving force behind the organization, providing a disproportionate amount of the CSTO's budget and military resources. In large part for this reason, the CSTO's mission has devolved from ensuring collective defense against external aggression to preventing domestic uprisings from overthrowing incumbent, mostly autocratic regimes. It was on this basis that the CSTO accepted President Tokayev's request to intervene in January 2022.

Beyond regional security, close Russian-Kazakhstani relations have also been motivated by mutual concerns over discord along their 4,750-mile-long shared land border, where the majority of ethnic Russians in Kazakhstan reside. Russians constitute a majority or near majority in several northern cities, including Petropavlovsk (59.28 percent), Pavlodar (41.11 percent), and Kostanay (41.88 percent). (6) These mutual concerns have reinforced interests in economic integration and, particularly for Kazakhstan, a commitment to promoting civic (rather than...