At least 225 are left dead in protests against raised fuel prices that lasted between Jan. 2 and 11, according to Serik Shalabayev, the head of criminal prosecution at the prosecutor’s office in Kazakhstan, due to a shoot to kill and without warning order from Kazakhstan’s president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and the Kremlin’s intervention. 

To contextualize, on Jan. 1, Kazakhstan’s government lifted price caps for liquefied petroleum gas. Fuel prices increased. This in addition to the already high unrest in Kazakhstan and would start the protests. 

The protests started in Zhanaozen on Jan. 2, but soon spread to multiple cities and began to become about pushing for socioeconomic and political change as the people of Kazakhstan live in general poverty and under an authoritarian regime. 

On Jan. 5, Kazakh president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev declared a state of emergency and announced that he had called upon the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), consisting of Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, to stabilize his nation.” 

The following day, an estimated 2,500 CSTO peacekeepers, mainly consisting of Russian troops, went into Kazakhstan to help quell the protests. 

“I don’t see Russia sending troops to help the government of Kazakhstan as maybe an inherently aggressive Putin move or anything like that,” said history teacher Mike Kennedy, “but Kazakhstan, like a lot of former Soviet states, is very rich in natural resources, particularly oil.” 

The next day, president Tokayev announced he had issued a shoot to kill without warning order against the protesters. 

“I am horrified to hear him say kill without warning because it shows how he doesn’t care about the lives of the citizens he’s sworn to protect,” said Andrei Lynch ’22, who lived in Kazakhstan as a small child. 

The next few days were relatively quiet because of the intervention of the Russians and eventually on Jan. 11 president Tokayev stated that order had been restored in his country and that the protests were over.

Subsequently, the CSTO peace keepers began departure from Kazakhstan on Jan. 13 and were completely gone by Jan. 19. 

These protests, the biggest crisis to shake Kazakhstan since its independence, focused on passing socioeconomic and political reform. Is this the end for political and economic reform in Kazakhstan? 

Kennedy said, “There will be deep historical memory of that Russian domination of Kazakhstan; they are unlikely to rebel again.”