Saturday, January 8, 2022

"Food and cash shortages spread as Kazakhstan throttles internet" + Russians To Evacuate Citizens From Almaty

Last week the Financial Times' Izabella Kaminska* linked to five different sources on Kazakhstan, three to lead off an FT Alphaville Further Reading post and two more on her twitter feed.

Because (mis)- information is scarce, the rumors are flying: That this is a color revolution instigated by Great Britain and the U.S. with Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs (includes Kazakhstan) Karen Donfried reprising the role of Victoria Nuland in Ukraine, 2014.

Or that this is Danegeld from the current administration to Putin: "Here, you keep quiet and keep Crimea and Kazakhstan" —sort of a Russia, Russia, Russia in reverse, with Hunter playing the role of Cohen in Prague, or that the energy prices story is only a ruse to cover for the anti-vaxxers or...

Well, there are a lot of rumors.

One of the sources Izabella linked to was Eurasianet.
Here they are with our headline story:

Modern life falls apart without an internet connection. 

Kazakhs woke on January 8 to find themselves, for the fourth straight day, cut off from the world. Without an internet connection – essential there, too, for modern services, including paying for goods – many were also beginning to run out of food.

Around 95 percent of internet users in Kazakhstan have been unable for the most part to get online since January 5, according to NetBlocks, a data provider. KazakhTelecom, the state-owned telecommunication giant, began throttling access on January 4 amid nationwide protests that began over fuel prices and quickly swept a nation with longstanding grievances about inequality and corruption.

The worst hit city is Almaty, epicenter of a violent government crackdown that has left dozens dead. Yet even there, several customers of the Russia-owned Beeline mobile service reported they could get online at times, and many sites are blocked. Telephone connections come and go, though data and cellular connections appear to be better in western Kazakhstan, which has been spared the violence. Even government websites have been forced offline.

Many Kazakhs do their daily shopping with debit cards. These were often rendered useless by the outage because payment terminals depend on internet connections. By the end of the week, long lines were forming at ATM machines in Almaty, Nur-Sultan and Aktau as residents sought cash to procure staples....

....MUCH MORE

They seem to have an anti-regime slant while getting out more details than almost anyone else. 
Also at Eurasianet: 
Kazakhstan: Ex-security services chief and Nazarbayev ally arrested
Masimov faces charges of treason.
 
Armenians take dim view of deployment to Kazakhstan
Many object that the CSTO didn’t aid Armenia when it asked for help, and pointed at the irony of the
current government coming to power as the result of  street protests.
 
What does China make of the Kazakhstan unrest? 
China sources about 20 percent of its natural gas from or via Kazakhstan.
 
Another of the sources she grabbed from Twitter was ASB News / MILITARY:
Breaking Military News with focus on NATO, Russia (CSTO), Middle East (MENA) region & occasionally, Latin America. — We counter Western propaganda with facts.

Obvs. more pro-regime/pro-Russia, who had the evacuation story:

And:

That last could be a pretty big deal as it is the first time we've seen the Turks on the same side as the Armenians as well as signaling a partial rapprochement with Russia, with whom relations have frayed a bit over Syria. 

Yesterday: "Kazakhstan uranium output unaffected by unrest"
*Regarding Ms Kaminska's departure from the FT, this may be a cover story to make the Financial Times see that more autonomy for Izabella would be in their best interests as more and more media pivot from positions that have hardened over the last six years and might not be sustainable going forward.

Alternatively, she may be buying time to allow David Keohane to take a flanking position vs. Bracken House from an unexpected direction, the Distaff Lane side of the block.

Or she may just be negotiating an early vesting of her pension and a guest appearance in the upcoming Wirecard movie.

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