09/01/2024 – Translated from Ukrainian via Google and OFP
Since 2022, there has been a lot of hostile negativity towards Kazakhstan in the Russian information space, and in 2024 it has become even more. One or another Russian talking head threatens the Kazakhs at least once a week with a hybrid or overt intervention. But does the Russian Armed Forces have the ability to carry out such an operation today and what is the potential of the Kazakh army to defend itself?
More details about this can be found in the material of the joint project of OBOZ.UA and the group “Information Resistance” .
The main thing is to shift focus
Before I begin my analysis, I would like to point out several very important points related to how Russia reacts to domestic and foreign policy (especially at the geopolitical level) defeats.
It is very important for Russia to save face in conditions when it is sinking to the bottom of its reputation. Even now, when the aggressor is suffering a crushing defeat on its territory in the Kursk region, Vladimir Putin – a war criminal wanted by the ICC – instead of daily meetings with security forces, went on a tour to Azerbaijan, to Chechnya, touched apples, candies with apples, watched how Kadyrov’s overweight offspring shoots at targets… In general, he did absolutely everything so as not to draw attention to what the Russian authorities are losing their hands on. In this case, the Kursk region.
However, very often Russia tries to compensate for its internal problems with some external, ephemeral source, to which, albeit briefly, it will be possible to shift the focus of attention.
In the early 1990s, when the new Russian government could not cope with internal processes that threatened the Russian Federation with division into several new entities, it tried to stabilize the situation with blood. Georgia, Armenia-Azerbaijan, Moldova and so on, right up to internal sacrifices of the most stable on the path of self-determination – Ichkeria (Chechnya) and Tatarstan, which lost their sovereignty and remained subjects of the russian master.
It is exactly the same now. Thinking that with an easy and quick victory in Ukraine Russia will be able to assert its right to participate in the big geopolitical game, it has only shown its weakness. Instead of Kyiv, in 2-3 days it now has the problem of the Kursk region. But this is not the first Russian failure since 2022.
During this period, Moscow has repeatedly considered various force scenarios to return its authority to some acceptable level above the swamp. Among them, the scenario in Moldova was considered twice and I do not rule out that it is still quite relevant – given the presidential elections in this republic in October of this year. But…
But Russia has not yet decided to take action against Moldova for at least two reasons. The first is the absence of a common border. The second is that as soon as the homeless people of the “Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic” [Transnistria–OFP] and Russian “peacekeepers” twitch, Ukrainian units will immediately begin to move in and then the “PMR” will return to the bosom of Moldova in a matter of days. But… Again, this alarming “BUT”.
But we hear much more often from Russian propaganda talking heads about Kazakhstan than about Moldova. Strangely, it is precisely this country that is more often the object of negativity among Russian Nazi patriots. Why is that?
January 2022
When a wave of protests swept across Kazakhstan in 2022, in addition to the so-called CSTO units, Russia also sent a landing force of its propagandists to the republic. And then they spread narratives that were almost identical to those they had already spread before the invasion of Ukraine.
In addition, the command of the CSTO contingent in Kazakhstan was assigned to the commander of the Russian Airborne Forces, Andrey Serdyukov. It was he who led the operation to occupy the Crimean Peninsula by Russia in 2014, and later the units of the Russian occupation forces in Donbass, using the call sign “Sedov”.
After the first Il-76MD aircraft with the first occupation unit of the Russian Armed Forces under the guise of the CSTO landed at the Nur-Sultan airport, the Russian “peacekeepers” very quickly took control:
98th Airborne Division of the Russian Federation: Nur-Sultan airport, General Staff building, television center;
45th Airborne Brigade of the Russian Federation: Almaty airport, air defense headquarters (Nur-Sultan);
31st Airborne Brigade of the Russian Federation: Ust-Kamenogorsk, “Kazatomprom”;
CSN “Senezh” : presidential palace (Nur-Sultan).
In fact, Russian “peacekeepers” established control over key facilities in the capital of the republic and beyond its borders – at a time when the main wave of protests had already ceased. The Russian Navy Marines also took control of the port in Aktau.
All this looked more like an intervention than a peacekeeping mission, and the next step could well have been crossing the northern border. But this did not happen, and being one step away from a hybrid occupation, Kazakhstan then avoided such a fate. But how realistic is such a scenario now or in the medium term?
Invasion of Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan’s biggest problem with Russia is their shared 7,598.8-kilometer border. It is the longest continuous border in the world, and its control is a major problem. A breakthrough is possible at any location, but not any location will do.
If Russia does attempt to invade Kazakhstan, it will be carried out according to the classic scheme – along highways and railways. Especially along the latter, which will have to provide the main logistics and material and technical support (MTO) of the troops.
While the border with Russia is a vulnerable point due to its length, Kazakhstan’s size is its trump card. Controlling such spaces is very difficult, and with a well-organized defense it will be easier to wear down and exhaust the enemy – even if it has a numerical advantage.
Although Russia is already exhausted by the war in Ukraine, it still represents a dangerous potential for small armies, which include the Kazakh one.
According to open data (primarily taken from Wikipedia, The Military Balance and other resources), the army of Kazakhstan is armed with:
tanks – from 300 to 1,600 combat-ready tanks, including a certain number in storage – around 3 thousand, but mostly in a state beyond repair;
BBM – from 700 to 1,000 combat-ready;
barrel artillery – about 600 units of varying degrees of combat readiness;
MLRS – more than 500 units of varying degrees of combat readiness;
armored vehicles – about 350.
Not the most outstanding indicators in terms of technology, but the army of Kazakhstan itself is not large – up to 47 thousand personnel.
Most of these same tanks have not been modernized in recent years, many do not even have dynamic protection as a mandatory option. Otherwise, the entire army is serviced by only one tank repair plant in the country, JSC Semey Engineering, in the city of Semey, 110 km from the border with Russia along the A322 highway. Therefore, if the goal is to disable the tank repair industry in Kazakhstan, then a blow in the direction of Semey is more than obvious.
In turn, a weakened Russia itself will not be able to provide the necessary number of forces and means for an invasion of Kazakhstan. Depending on the goals and objectives at different stages, the RF Armed Forces can use a contingent of up to 100-150 thousand personnel, divided into several groups of troops operating separately.
If the task of the ROV is not just to control the northern regions, but to directly reach Astana and control the capital, then a group of 300 to 500 thousand personnel may be needed – depending on the combat front covered. By the way, now in the war with Ukraine Russia has deployed a group of 540 thousand personnel.
But despite all its bellicose statements against Kazakhstan, it is clear that Russia will not be able to form such a group to achieve its goal – control of the capital.
Even despite the less than ideal technical condition of the Kazakh army, its mechanized component, mainly represented by old Soviet equipment, the condition of the Russian army is not getting better, but even worse with each passing month. But still, the war in Ukraine has shown that in modern conditions it is not even those who have quantitative superiority on the ground that dominate, but those who dominate in the air.
Therefore, the creation of a storage base of FPV drones and the training of operators can become a serious help for the Kazakh army – in case of not only an invasion from Russia, but also any other vector conflict.
Conclusions
The constant threats from Russian talking heads against Kazakhstan do not pose any practical threat at this stage. Russia will not be able to sustain another war, which will require resources no less than the war in Ukraine.
But in the medium term, it is possible that the Kremlin will launch a scenario in which another war could be started to distract attention from the failure in Ukraine – one that, in the opinion of the military-political leadership of the Russian Federation, guarantees a quick victory.
The threat of such a development of events is quite real, taking into account a number of features of Kazakhstan, in particular its area. And it is quite possible to implement a number of Ukrainian solutions with a much higher efficiency. In particular, providing border coverage with fpv drone units, and perhaps in general to follow the path of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and create a separate branch of the military accordingly.
In 2022, Russian troops have already rehearsed the seizure of Kazakhstan under the guise of a CSTO peacekeeping operation. To think that they have forgotten this scenario and that it was never raised during meetings is to delude oneself.
Invading a country the size of Kazakhstan would be a stupid move by mafia land, seeing the current state of its military, which is far from rosy. The small Kazakh army would under normal circumstances pose no real threat and its only trump is being able to retreat into the vastness of its territory, which is a small advantage because it would still lead to eventual defeat.
Maybe mafia land is looking for a distraction from its failure in Kursk, but why choose Kazakhstan? Mafia land could more easily attack Georgia or Armenia.
We’ll see what sort of idiocy the kremlin will think of to distract from its incompetencies. This about Kazakhstan is only wishful thinking by a few propagandists who have wet dreams about their country still being a world power to be reconned with, instead of the truth that it’s a regional power on its way down to insignificance.
It could be Kazakhstan became a distraction target since they made a deal with China to bypass the swamp with gas.