The police of Kazakhstan will destroy the participants in the riots who will put up armed resistance when demanding to lay down their arms, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the republic reported.
“In the event of armed resistance to legal demands to lay down their arms, they are being destroyed.”
According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in the regions of Kazakhstan, patrolling by police and national guard squads has been intensified and checkpoints have been set up. Police arrest protesters.
Earlier, the Ministry of Internal Affairs reported that 2,298 participants in the riots were detained in Kazakhstan. 18 law enforcement officers were killed, and two were found beheaded, 748 were injured. More than 400 people were hospitalized, the Ministry of Health of the country specified.
Performances in Kazakhstan began after the New Year amid rising gas prices for cars to 120 tenge. Subsequently, the government announced a reduction in the cost of the energy carrier to 50 tenge, but this did not stop the protests.
Alexei Makarkin, the first vice-president of the Center for Political Technologies, HSE professor, explained to Vedomosti that the rallies began for socio-economic and political reasons. According to the expert, the citizens of Kazakhstan are dissatisfied with the rise in prices, property inequality, tensions due to the severe consequences of the pandemic, as well as the fact that the first president of the country, Nursultan Nazarbayev, having left his post and transferred most of the power functions to the new head of state, Kassym-Zhomart Tokayev, did not quite leave from politics and retains significant influence and leverage.
Tokayev blamed “international terrorist gangs” for the riots. He replaced Nazarbayev as chairman of the Security Council and asked his CSTO partners to help resolve the situation. In this regard, peacekeepers were sent to Kazakhstan. A state of emergency has been declared in the country.
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