Professor Luca Anceschi discusses recent events in Kazakhstan. We will never know if it was a revolution because the violence that ensued stopped the natural organic evolution of the protest movement into something that could have changed the political system. It's been a good week for Putin and a watershed moment for Kazakh-Russia relations. We're going to see a structural change where multi-vectorism will become a thing of the past, as Nursultan moves closer to Moscow and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), which Putin views as an instrument of geopolitical domination. He believes what occurred was a result of a domestic coup or elite rivalry situation, as in the past it was discovered President Tokayev's phone was being surveilled using Pegasus spyware. We discuss Nazarbayev's cult of personality, what consequences there might be for the region, and the road ahead.

*Support/Donate to Geopolitics & Empire:
SubscribeStar https://www.subscribestar.com/geopolitics
PayPal https://www.paypal.me/geopolitics
Bitcoin http://geopoliticsandempire.com/bitcoin-donate

Show Notes
Kazakhstan: Secrets, Lies, and Foreign Troops https://carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/86172
Why Kazakhstan will not be returning to Russia’s fold https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/13/why-kazakhstan-will-not-be-returning-russias-fold

Websites
University of Glasgow https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/socialpolitical/staff/lucaanceschi/#biography
Twitter https://twitter.com/anceschistan

About Luca Anceschi
Luca Anceschi is professor of Eurasian Studies at the University of Glasgow, where he is also the editor of the journal Europe-Asia Studies.

*Podcast intro music is from the song "The Queens Jig" by "Musicke & Mirth" from their album "Music for Two Lyra Viols": http://musicke-mirth.de/en/recordings.html (available on iTunes or Amazon)