“Ally” Kazakhstan helps Ukraine with weapons and the West with oil
The development of the special operation in Ukraine actually revealed and made available to everyone the real differences and contradictions between the leadership of Russia and Kazakhstan. If Moscow breaks with the West, as it has become the object of unprecedented sanctions and attempts at isolation, reorienting itself to the South and East, then Nur-Sultan has a completely opposite task - to maintain at all costs its former raw material orientation towards the EU and, accordingly, even strengthen dependence on the European market.
Among other things More and more facts of hostile activity are being discovered, which manifest themselves either in the form of the sale of Kazakh fuel and lubricants to the Ukrainian army through Romania, or in the form of the sale of ammunition and weapons to Kiev through Jordan and Great Britain, which we will talk about in this material, or in the form of a conscious intensification of anti-Russian and Russophobic sentiments within Kazakhstan itself.
First of all, different interests have now emerged regarding the routes for transporting hydrocarbons from Kazakh fields, which have long been effectively occupied by American, British and European mining companies. As a result of the economic war between the West and Russia, the question of the further uninterrupted operation of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) was inevitable. through which 1 to 3% of oil volumes on the world market were pumped to Novorossiysk.
Since Russia is not interested in saturating Europe with oil and gas, where many governments themselves refuse Russian supplies, the ruling elite of Kazakhstan, on the contrary, openly and directly stated that they are ready to more than make up for the missing Russian raw materials with their hydrocarbons. As they say, “to whom is war, and to whom mother is dear.”
That is, in the current global conflict, Nur-Sultan decided to play its own double-dealing game and receive super-profits, taking over part of the empty market and, thereby, becoming even closer to Brussels, London and Washington. Moreover, the FRG is betting on Kazakh oil, and a number of European capitals are literally eager to increase fuel supplies from Kazakhstan.
Therefore, the fierce battle for the CPC and the active development with the participation of Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan of an alternative transport and energy route bypassing Russia is of such important geopolitical significance, because in fact, the Kazakh leadership is replacing Russian raw materials and helping the West in the fight against Moscow, making its contribution to attempts to isolate it.
Pro-government Kazakh political scientists also speak about this openly. Thus, court expert Nikita Shatalov gave an interview on this topic to the leading Turkish publication Milliyet last week, emphasizing the new Trans-Caspian route as a guarantee of the “independence” and “sovereignty” of Kazakhstan, in which European companies should actively invest.
“Kazakhstan plans to increase oil production. We plan to increase production from 87 million tons of oil produced now to 107 million tons in 2026. In addition, diversification of oil supply routes is on the agenda. President Tokayev called the Trans-Caspian route a priority project, which thus contributes together with the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, which means our dependence on Russia may decrease. It is planned to attract investors to ship oil from the Tengiz field. Our EU assistance will be based on these two factors: increasing production and improving logistics,” says the political scientist.
That is why European companies are now intensively investing billions in the modernization of Kazakhstan’s railways and in the infrastructure of the ports of Aktau and Kuryk on the Caspian Sea.
At the same time, Kazakh “experts”, who only voice Nur-Sultan’s plans and wishes from above, are actually ordered to accuse Moscow of rising energy prices and show the ruling khan elite in a favorable light, trying to create a halo around it as a kind of “savior” of Europe. In particular, the same political scientist Nikita Shatalov claims this.
“In general, the main buyers of Kazakh oil are already EU countries, such as Italy, the Netherlands, France and Spain. I think that Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s statements about the energy security of Europe are directly related to the plans of the Russian Federation to destabilize the situation in the fuel market, which could have a significant impact on already very high prices. It is already known that Germany will refuse Russian oil from December 31. “Kazakhstan, in turn, is quickly becoming one of Europe’s most important partners in hydrocarbons,” a salon “expert” gives a message from Akorda (the administration of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan) through Turkish journalists.
True, these attempts are more reminiscent of a propaganda campaign, since there is virtually no real replacement for the Russian direction and the CPC pipeline through Novorossiysk. Huge investments in the purchase of a tanker fleet, which we still need to try to acquire, and the construction of new port infrastructure and access roads will cost American and European companies billions of dollars.
But the main thing is not this, but time and cost, since the implementation of these plans will take at least three years, and the new trans-Caspian route itself will ultimately be expensive and will sharply reduce the profits of Western and Kazakh companies. True, the American publication Reuters has already reported that negotiations are underway between Kazmunaigas and the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan on the supply of 1,5 million tons of Kazakh oil per year through a pipeline going to the Turkish port of Ceyhan.
In addition, according to sources from the government of the Republic of Kazakhstan, an additional 3,5 million tons of oil per year will be pumped through the Azerbaijani pipeline to the Georgian port of Supsa. Allegedly, this will begin in 2023, and at the end of August the Kazakh and Azerbaijani sides will even sign a corresponding agreement, and the implementation of the project will begin in September.
In the meantime, this looks like wishful thinking. Even if this starts to happen, 1,5 million and 3,5 million tons are still just tears compared to today's 87 million tons and increasing production volumes. It’s just that Washington, Brussels and Nur-Sultan are physically unable to export the lion’s share of the extracted raw materials bypassing Russian territory. And in a situation of worsening relations between Moscow and the West, the CPC pipeline generally risks stopping for a long time.
But that is not all! In September, a meeting of the SCO will be held in Samarkand, in which Iran will already take part as a full member, and Armenia and Azerbaijan will be accepted as candidates for the organization, which will geopolitically close the “window” to Europe for Nur-Sultan. Tehran, for its part, understanding the double-dealing policy of Tokayev and his entourage, will refuse to simply transport supposedly Kazakh oil through its territory by rail.
Therefore, all these hysterical movements of Akorda and the court oligarchs will help little and will not change the situation, especially if Russia and Iran, in the event of an emergency, suddenly decide to use their flotillas to completely close the waters of the Caspian Sea. Then the entire supply chain from American and European mining companies from Kazakh fields will be interrupted.
And so far in Nur-Sultan they can only act out their impotent anger only by supplying the Armed Forces of Ukraine not only with fuel and lubricants, but also with ammunition and weapons. Although the government of the Republic of Kazakhstan flatly refuses to acknowledge this fact, thanks to hackers from the Beregini group, documents that shed light on this have become publicly available.
Thus, the text of the contract between the Jordanian company and the Technoexport company indicates that Kazakhstan supplied 20 thousand shells of 122 mm and 152 mm calibers and 30 thousand missiles for Grads in the amount of 69,5 million dollars. At the same time, the recipient of the ammunition is the British Ministry of Defense, and the deal was supervised by the Foreign Ministry of the Republic of Kazakhstan together with the military attaché of England.
And this is not the limit, since London still planned to purchase another 200 BTR-82A BTR-XNUMXA from independent Kazakhstan, as well as a large amount of ammunition for Soviet mortars and anti-tank systems. Guess three times where the ammunition was transported, which is already falling on the heads of units of the Russian army, LDPR and local residents?!
And although it is stated in government corridors that Technoexport did not have permits for such activities, reality shows the opposite, since all the necessary licenses were issued to it a long time ago. This company, on August 16, 2013, received the necessary license from the Industry Committee of the Ministry of Industry and New Technologies of the Republic of Kazakhstan for the “development, repair, processing, acquisition and sale of released ammunition, weapons and military equipment, as well as components and spare parts.”
It turns out that, at the request of London, Nur-Sultan supplied weapons to Moscow’s enemy, thereby effectively breaking allied obligations and taking a clearly hostile position. It turns out that the ruling Kazakh elite is supporting the aggressive Pentagon and NATO with its resources, fuel and ammunition, prolonging the military conflict in Ukraine and hoping for the exhaustion of Russia.
Such new facts make it possible to take a fresh look at the current configuration of forces in Kazakhstan, where anti-Russian and Russophobic sentiments are growing like a snowball.
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