CSTO Council Decides To Deploy Troops In Kazakhstan

• 6.01.2022, 8:03

The total size of the contingent is more than 3,000 people.

The Council of the Collective Security Treaty Organization has decided to send a CSTO "collective peacekeeping force" to Kazakhstan.

The head of the CSTO Council, Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan has announced it.

He stressed in the statement that the decision was made following an appeal by the president of Kazakhstan and "in view of the threat to national security and sovereignty caused, among other things, by interference from outside".

"Peacekeepers" are being sent to Kazakhstan for a limited period of time "for the purpose of stabilising and normalising the situation in the country", he stressed.

In addition to Armenia, the CSTO includes Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

According to official data, the total number of CSTO peacekeeping forces is more than 3,000.

In the first days of January 2022, mass protests broke out in Kazakhstan. They began as protests against gas price hikes, but quickly turned into demonstrations with political slogans. The authorities responded with mass detentions of protesters, security measures, an internet blockade and a state of emergency in the rioting regions.

On the third day of the protests, demonstrations were banned and curfews imposed in Almaty and Almaty Region, Nur-Sultan and Mangistau Region, clashes involving the use of stun grenades began, and the government was forced to step down.

By the evening of 5 January, protesters had seized several government buildings, including the airport in Almaty.