Russia and Kazakhstan: opening up new horizons

Vladimir Putin, the President of the Russian Federation, intends to visit the Republic of Kazakhstan (RoK) in the end of November. KazTAG agency was the first to announce this visit, and then some sources in the Kremlin confirmed the preparation for the visit. Currently the representatives of both countries are preparing a big package of bilateral documents to be signed in the course of the forthcoming negotiations. Simultaneously the expert community is discussing the new horizons in the relations between Russia and Kazakhstan to be opened up by the state visit of the RF President [1].

Long-term projects

Long-term projects in the energy sphere hold a significant place in the package of bilateral agreements. For example, during the previous visit of Vladimir Putin to Astana, the RF and RoK executed the agreement to build three combined heat and power plants (CHPPs) in the cities of Kokshetau, Semei and Ust-Kamenogorsk. Their total budget is estimated at USD 3 bn, and the construction is to be finished by 2028 according to the approved schedule. Previously there was information about Moscow exploring the possibility to increase the volumes of natural gas supplied to Kazakhstan customers. On top of that, some Russian companies intend to implement new projects in Kazakhstan oil sector. And finally, one of the key items on the agenda of the forthcoming visit by Vladimir Putin will be negotiations about agreements in nuclear power industry. Most likely, the parties will be discussing the construction of the new nuclear power plant (NPP) in Kazakhstan, which became possible after successful national referendum [2].

It should be noted that all the projects in the energy sector are long-term. For example, about 10 years will be required for design and construction of NPP. Such length is underpinned by the technological complexity, the requirements to safety and the need to comply with all the international standards and norms. The working lifespan of Russian power units with new WWER-1000, WWER -1200 and WWER-TOI reactors (all of them are part of NPP-2006 project) was extended from 30 to 60 years. On average one nuclear fuel assembly can serve for three to four years. However, the fuel cycle within the operations makes approximately 18 months. It means that building and operating such strategically important site as nuclear power plant and further regular fuel change require political stability and complete predictability in the relations between Russia and Kazakhstan in the long-term perspective. The agreements pertaining to oil-and-gas sector also are of long-term character. For example, Rosneft updated the agreement with Kaztransoil about supplying 10 mln tons of oil per annum to China via Kazakhstan during the period of ten years – up to 2034 [3]. PJSC Gazprom and Oil Company QazaqGaz have recently signed long-term agreements for transporting Russian gas through RoK territory to Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. These agreements will stay in effect for the period 2025-2040 [4].

These are just the first steps towards resolving the acute problems having accumulated in the energy sector of Kazakhstan – back from the Soviet times. The coal-fired power plants make 70% of total RoK generation, and their amortization is almost complete, but their replacement requires significant investment and time. Companies from the West are not that much interested in the Kazakhstan market due to the specifics of the coal deposits and difficulties with processing. Experts note that only cooperation with Russia can open up new prospects for Kazakhstan in developing the national energy sector. Let us especially note that cooperation in this sector is mutually beneficial. For example, both parties are interested in creating the industrial zone in RoK close to the feedstock sources and demographic resources, however, shortage of electricity is currently putting a bridle on these plans [5].

The participation of Russia allows for the opportunity of laying new gas pipelines across the industrially developed Northern and Eastern territories of Kazakhstan, and then transfer a number of city CHPPs to more environmentally friendly gas fuel. Kazakhstan is also interested in getting Russian equipment for housing and utilities sector, energy sector and transportation infrastructure, and is ready to offer long-term contracts to Russian companies for their upgrade and follow-up operation. In its turn, the Russian Federation gets new transit routes to China and Central Asia across the territory of RoK to transport oil, gas and food products. In the long-term perspective, this is not just upgrading the existing transit schemes, but also about laying new transit capacities within the development of the North-South international transportation corridor (ITC). For example, the increase of the throughput capacity of Omsk – Pavlodar – Shymkent – Chardzhou oil pipeline is currently under discussion including its branch to Alashankou (China) and its extension to Bandar Abbas (the Iranian port). Eventually, oil and gas fields of West Siberia will get direct access to the markets of India and of the Persian Gulf countries. These are signs of the cooperation between the RF and the RoK acquiring strategic depth and length for decades.

Geopolitical changes

One of the fundamentally important aspects for strengthening of the relations with Kazakhstan is the re-assessment of geopolitical priorities by the Russian Federation taking place beneath our eyes. Rapid alienation of Russia from the countries of the collective West, the breaking of the centuries-long and often semi-colonial ties with Europe became the most important result of the situation around Ukraine. A belt of hostile states appeared at the Western frontiers of the RF, and they are striving to perform the functions of the «sanitary cordon». This is a kind of a blind wall fencing out the «dangerous Muscovy» from Euro-Atlantic area and simultaneously – a base for disseminating the military and political power of the West to Eurasia. The contours of Versailles-Riga system are being reactivated, though in updated format, which in 1919-1921 formalized the long-lasting geopolitical solitude of Soviet Russia. Some analysts even believe that Russia rolled back to the times before Peter the Great and thus the historical layers of the 17th century opened up – trade routes via the Caspian Region and the Central Asian steppe, influential Persian and Indian merchants. Only one thing we can state with confidence: in the most critical moment Russia turned its face to the East and could hold up against Western sanctions thanks to its reliable allies including Kazakhstan.

Vadim Tsymbursky, a Russian geopolitical analyst, was one of the very few strategists, who forecasted such a dramatic twist back in mid 90s of the last century. According to him, the struggle between the two global trends – maintaining the unipolarity and the strive for multipolarity – will be making the main context of the global military and political developments in the next half of the century. The success of Russia as an independent center of power in the future multipolar world will depend on two key factors. First, on its ability to develop its own macro-region in the South-East based on the Volga basin, Urals and West Siberia, where the countries of the Caspian Region, the Caucasus and Central Asia will form a buffer and become intermediaries between our neighboring civilizations – Europe, China and India. Second, on the resolute turn to the East and refusal from the previous ideology of «the Abduction of Europa» based on the illusions about our country belonging to the Western civilization club. «The Abduction of Europa», which later turned into «the abduction of the West», always led to colossal expenses, to disastrous waste of Russian resources – both human and financial, without any return adequate to the wasted efforts», the geopolitical analyst stated [6].

One of the main geopolitical ideas of Vadim Tsymbursky was establishment of the new state center in the East of Russia. «The Abduction of Europa», as the analyst fairly assumed, was impeding the development of the «aboriginal» Russia – especially its regions in the East and beyond the Urals. According to Tsymbursky, these territories were underdeveloped due to the fact that «in our tricentennial imperial history the outward focus prevailed – European, Balkan, Central Asian». South-West Siberia and the adjacent Eastern Urals – the areas between Yekaterinburg, Orenburg and Kemerovo – he called the most important «geopolitical lynchpin» of Russia, which can become either the place of the new assembly of the statehood, or the dangerous break-point. According to him, shifting the capital of Russia to the East will lead to the drastic change of the strategic paradigm for Russia «with a focus on the rising edges of Asia and South, which will assure the rebirth of the country and the renewal of its national destiny». Persistent advancing of NATO to our borders and the crisis in Ukraine are new compelling arguments in favor of shifting the capital into the depth of the country, – and prominent politicians are talking about that more and more [7]. The recent assignment of the RF President Vladimir Putin about transferring the offices of major state-owned corporations beyond the Urals, where the major donor regions are situated, is a clear evidence of gradual changes in geopolitical concepts of the national leaders [8].

Within the new geopolitical paradigm, Kazakhstan is the main ally of the Russian Federation, and it will be impossible to develop the new pro-Russian region without it. Vadim Tsymbursky presciently noted that «Kazakhstan should be viewed not as a minor state balancing between the centers of power, but as one of the key and fundamental elements of the great territorial belt, the backbone of the modern world» [9]. The past decades have nothing but confirmed this brilliant forecast – today Moscow has highest regard for the key role of Kazakhstan to assure external and internal security of the RF. Russia is strategically interested in securing its Southern frontiers, in maintaining the connectivity of its European and Siberian parts, as well as in the communication role of friendly Kazakhstan in the Central Asian Region. Our common land frontier is the longest in the world, and it makes it a unique factor of our common interdependency and common vulnerability. Any potential conflict in our common frontier zone will immediately give the potential enemy access to the strategic Trans-Siberian Railway, to the Caspian Region and to the Russian oil and gas regions of West Siberia. As we mentioned earlier in the materials of the Caspian Institute for Strategic Studies, «destabilization of Kazakhstan is the same as destabilization of Russian Siberia», hence, we need to invest our mutual efforts into strengthening the strategic alliance of Moscow and Astana.

New trends

Various implications of the Special Military Operation constitute another important factor setting new trends in the relations between Russia and Kazakhstan. Long-running conflict between Russian and the West emerged, then it gained some stability and turned into homeostasis state. The main feature of homeostasis of any big system is its ability to reproduce itself in the given situation. However, such «unbalanced equilibrium» requires constant growth of resources for its maintaining. There are two ways to destroy homeostasis: either due to depletion of resources needed to support the conflict, or due to strong external crisis and change of context, e.g., «Trump’s factor». The first one means Russia’s victory in foreseeable future, the second one – an indefinite end-game in the nearest future. «Russia cannot be defeated from the military standpoint», the President of RoK Kassym Jomart Tokayev openly stated at the plenary session of Astana Think Tank Forum. «This fact is confirmed by the military potential of Russia, by strong support of President Putin and his policy on behalf of an overwhelming majority of the population, and by history per se», the leader of Kazakhstan noted [10]. It is difficult to disagree with this accurate assessment by such experienced politician and foreign policy expert and diplomat, that is why future options of peaceful settlement of the conflict in Ukraine should take into account the new realities including strong military and economic power of Russia and its changed position in the world.

De-facto, Kazakhstan does not directly participate in the Ukrainian conflict and undertakes all possible efforts to distance itself from direct support of one of the parties. However, the overwhelming force of the Special Military Operation factor and significant consequences of sanctions-relates barriers in the economy, financial and logistics sectors for the entire FSU zone had a material impact on the current Russia – Kazakhstan link. For example, some regional experts even believe that Kazakhstan found itself in the position of the beneficiary of this Special Military Operation. They base their arguments on the numbers evidencing the growth of Kazakhstan re-export, growth of outside investment and relocation of numerous Russian and foreign companies to RoK [11]. President Kassym Jomart Tokayev also has visibly strengthened his personal influence in the global arena and the new status of Kazakhstan as the middle state in the course of frequent foreign visits within the pragmatic and multi-vector diplomacy [12]. At the same time, President Tokayev keeps emphasizing that Kazakhstan is not «anti-Russia» and faithfully follows the course for multilateral cooperation with Moscow. Overall, Kazakhstan provides meaningful support to Russia on the practical level (e.g., in the sphere of «sluicing» of Russian imports and finance); at the same time, Astana undertakes all possible efforts to camouflage these friendly steps with the laid-back gestures of external allegiance and political rhetoric about «rigorous compliance with the sanctions».

Over the recent years and especially in the course of the Special Military Operations, open divergence with respect of goals and objectives was revealed between the economic and financial basis of our bilateral relations and its media and analytical «superstructure». For example, Russian companies and banks quite quickly and successfully adjusted to the new sanctions-related environment and changes in logistics. Clear understanding appeared, that Western sanctions are here to stay, maybe even forever. That is why Russian enterprises and financial institutions need to patiently integrate into the sable economy of friendly neighboring countries such as Kazakhstan, and then enter global markets via such countries. A lot of new investment and new major projects appeared, they are implemented by such major players as SIBUR, Inter RAO, Rosneft, Tatneft and Gazprom. Now Yandex, Rosatom and Russian Railways are actively joining this race of investment and infrastructure projects, as well as many new corporations and banks. Over the past three years the quality of financial and economic expertise of such projects in Eurasia has improved significantly, and expert assessments of geopolitical and systemic risks appeared in the corporate environment [13]. All this is an evidence of the fact, that financial and economic block has set a strategic course for developing a sustainable macro-region around «the island of Russia» actively using friendly «territories-straits» (see details in the beginning of this report).

On the contrary, the media and analytical block has lost the initiative and the strategic depth shifting to the level of tactical and even quick-fix projects, which are reactive and not pro-active. The dangerous situation of the «aberration of proximity», which was described in the last annual CISS report, not only was not resolved, but also demonstrated a new trend of the media agenda: focus on gutter journalism and mutual blaming (often absurd) [14]. Eventually, Russian media failed to adequately assess the events and trends of our closest neighbor Kazakhstan, and Kazakhstan media started to be more focused on pro-Ukrainian and Western publications and nationalistic Telegram channels.

Today, the unbiassed information about the real situation and living in our neighboring countries practically cannot be found in the media. Propaganda and one-off PR actions replaced systemic work with public opinion. No work is practically done to build the common media space of solidarity, which is absolutely necessary for implementing long-term investment projects. The expert communities of Russia and Kazakhstan, called to create new narratives and promote allied relations, turned out to be very weak and fragmented. Some experts became the «on-call commentators» for mass media, others moved to the closed niche of analysts for securities officials and corporations, and the third group demonstrate depoliticization and escapism including drifting to historical fantasy. Instead of intellectual reflection over the current life-changing events, they offer their audience to discuss the episodes of the past and allegedly «find the grounds for consolidation». It seems that too many historians (even former ones) are now occupying the positions of analysts in some key think tanks. All of them are urging us to move forward with our faces turned backwards and to constantly continue finalizing old historical themes. The expert community of Russia and Kazakhstan needs to withdraw from this cloudiness of «historic reenactment» and get back to the positions based on common sense. Our common objective is to provide a clear picture of modern world free of political myths to the post-Soviet generation and to set the new horizons for future development.

Formats with high potential

We should acknowledge that the relations between Russia and Kazakhstan are of a long-term strategic character. Long ago they have overgrown the «good neighbourship» and even the fine-tuned personalistic friendship format. The crescent contradictions between the economic and financial basis of bilateral relations with the neighbors and the current media and analytical superstructure may be resolved using two methods. The first one is through the «supreme arbitration» of the top leaders and the «manual operation of conflicts» mode, which in effect is going on at present. The second method is to switch to manual operation to automated operation through creating a system of new narratives and ambitious future goals. According to some experts, the main objective until 2030 should be in gradual switch from the current system of the «diplomacy of the leaders» to a more flexible and sustainable institutional system. In the context of demographic transition and generational change such switch is especially important, because the new generation of elites has arrived to the political and economic arena of Kazakhstan, who does not have Soviet education and common background.

In future our bilateral cooperation will be getting more complicated and extended based on the new formats of interaction – in digitalization, in science and technology sphere, by way of integration of industrial and agricultural sectors, as well as in the course of implementing joint social, educational and humanitarian programs. This will require broad «parallelization» of the relations between Russia and Kazakhstan – at different levels of the society: from permanent meetings at the parliamentary and regional levels and regular expert and student exchanges to developing the domestic tourism sector and extension of contacts between ordinary citizens. The integration efforts need to be strengthened and such successful formats as CIS, EAEU and CSTO need to be filled with new contents [16]. Experts believe that Russia and Kazakhstan need some sort of «railings» protecting our bilateral relations from potential catastrophic scenarios. The effective mechanisms of dialogue and communication could serve as such «railings» including at the analytical and informal levels. Unfortunately, the number of such channels has significantly decreased over the recent years, and this caused certain misunderstanding and even breaks in political communication.

Let us say that it will be difficult to transform the bilateral relations between Russia and Kazakhstan from the mode of «personal trust» of the two Presidents to a flexible institutional form based on the old approaches. This will require creating new adequate institutions for development and support of our allied relations at all levels – from intergovernmental and interdepartmental commissions to a broad network of NGOs and think tanks. Analysts and experts from Russia and Kazakhstan should be constantly working at research and development projects, but not just getting together once or twice a year to discuss certain issues. Joint Russian-Kazakhstan thinktanks need to be established in such key spheres as economics, sociology, demographics and advanced technology. The most important and urgent task of such expert assessment is to develop a new political language and new political formats, because it is already impossible to describe the current rapidly changing reality using the obsolete Soviet concepts of «friendship of fraternal peoples» or Western cliches.

To summarize, we need to say a few words about the prospects for the soft power projects. Sergey Lavrov, the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, based on the outcomes of his recent visit to Astana, announced that three Russian schools would be established in Kazakhstan, and three Kazakh schools will be established in Russia. No doubt, this is a correct step in the correct direction, but it is not enough. Kazakhstan is undergoing a real population boom, and local schools will be suffering a shortage of seats up to 1 mln by 2025 already. According to some experts, the population of Kazakhstan will soon reach 22 mln, and every year approximately 150 thou people will be going to work in other countries, mainly in the RF; moving forward, over 1 mln of Kazakhstan citizens will go to work abroad. This is mainly poorly educated rural population speaking Kazakh and being outside of Russian influence zone. Restructuring the educational system of Kazakhstan using Russian school textbooks translated into Kazakh may be an alternative to spontaneous archaization and radicalization of the younger generation. As for Russian mass media, they need to dub their materials into Kazakh, as well as all their entertaining content including popular movies and serial films. In near future, Russia should deploy the recruiting system in Kazakhstan and organize local colleges for training in blue-collar professions and Russian language. Today, Russia and Kazakhstan can maintain their global political influence only together and only through a broad cultural and economic union – in spite of all the negative demographic and economic circumstances.

The long-term objective of all our efforts is to establish the strategic union of Russia and Kazakhstan. Clearly, there are no and there can’t be any quick solutions similar to commercial practices of merges and acquisitions (when Kazakhstan merges with the Union State of Russia and Belarus). More likely, this will be like a «strong union without formal marriage» between Moscow and Astana. In practical sense we need to discuss gradual integration of Kazakhstan into digital and managerial ecosystem of Russia at different levels. Joint projects in the sphere of archives and digitalization of document flow should become the priority of the executive power bodies. The common databases for government agencies and situation centers, cryptocurrency and payment systems, mutual access to e-government services – all these factors are capable of uniting our countries without redundant slogans and declarations. All these priorities are determined by life itself, because the ability of Russia to grow its strength and its future attractiveness is critically dependent on such important factors as our inner self-confidence in our victory and our ability to develop friendly alliances with our neighboring countries such as the Republic of Kazakhstan.