In the first days of January, Russian President Vladimir Putin had long telephone conversations on the situation in Kazakhstan, including with the head of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko. This was announced at a briefing with journalists by the press secretary of the Russian leader Dmitry Peskov.

“In the first days of January, indeed, President Putin had a number of long, detailed telephone conversations with his colleagues in the CSTO, including Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko. Indeed, there were also very, very lengthy discussions with him. I mean the events in Kazakhstan,” the Kremlin spokesman said.

Earlier, Lukashenko said that, together with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, he developed an operation plan to send CSTO peacekeeping forces to Kazakhstan. He noted that this was the first time that the CSTO forces were actually involved in ensuring the security, stability and integrity of one of the member states of the Organization.

Protests broke out in Kazakhstan on January 2 in the city of Zhanaozen, Mangistau region, due to an increase in the price of liquefied gas to 120 tenge (about 21 rubles) per liter of liquefied gas. Prior to this, the price of a liter of gas was 60 tenge. Two days later, protesters clashed with the police and military in Almaty and a number of other cities. Clashes also took place in Aktobe, Taraz, Aktau and other settlements. To suppress the unrest, at the request of the Kazakh authorities, the CSTO peacekeeping forces were sent to the republic. On January 11, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev announced the completion of the organization's mission in the country.

bbabo.Net