Dozens ‘Liquidated’ as Russia Sends Troops to Kazakhstan and Blames ‘Outside’ Forces for the Chaos

Dozens of protesters were believed to have died in Kazakhstan when demonstrations turned bloody on Thursday and Russia sent paratroopers in a dangerous attempt to quell the uprising.

Police in the largest city, Almaty, said “dozens of attackers were liquidated” as they tried to storm government buildings, referring to protesters. The local police chief was quoted by local media as calling the protesters “radical and radical”.

State television reported that more than a dozen members of law enforcement had died, two of whom are believed to have been beheaded, according to Reuters.

Banks have been closed across the country, flights to the country have been stopped and residents in Kazakhstan are cut off from the rest of the world due to internet outages, making the whole level of chaos impossible. clearly.

Video posted by a local blogger shows the mayor’s office on fire, along with a prosecutor’s office, both lit up the sky as gunfire and sirens could be heard in the background.

The Russian Foreign Ministry urged all citizens in Kazakhstan to stay indoors and claimed outside forces were behind the chaos.

“We view recent events in a friendly country as an attempt, inspired by outside, to undermine the security and integrity of the state by force, using armed formations. trained and organized,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The Kremlin frequently uses the claim that the popular protests are in fact a Western-led effort to destabilize the region.

The escalation of violence came after the army was called in to quell the protests, which were sparked by anger over petrol fuel price hikes but quickly escalated as protesters raged against Nursultan Nazarbayev , the country’s iron fist leader who ruled for three decades until he stepped down in 2019, only to stay in power as head of the country’s security council.

Protesters turned their gazes on him with chants of, “Old man, go away!”

Nazarbayev was stripped of his security council position as protests spiraled out of control on Wednesday.

But his removal did not calm the protesters, who continued to oppose Nazarbayev’s cleverly chosen successor, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.

Tokayev called the protesters “terrorist gangs” and accused them of “undermining the integrity of the state”.

Moscow’s decision to call for help on Wednesday only fanned the flames, with many warning that the move would only cause unrest to spread across the region.

On Thursday, as troops from Belarus, Armenia, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan moved in to quell the protests as part of the “peacekeeping” mission of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization, everyone Things took a different turn when a group of hackers announced a plan to destroy the participating Belarussian army.

The “Network Republicans” vowed to unmask every Belarussian soldier sent to Kazakhstan, Medusa report.