In a rare moment of discord, Kazakhstan president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said that his nation does not recognize the so-called republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, creating an uncomfortable moment while sharing the stage with Russian president Vladimir Putin, news agency Bloomberg reported.
The incident happened when moderator Margarita Simonyan, head of the Kremlin-funded RT TV, started a discussion on the war in Ukraine and Putin argued that the Russian recognition of the autonomous republics of Donetsk and Luhansk was to protect Russian-speakers in those regions.
Tokayev differed. “(Donetsk and Luhansk are) quasi-state territories which, in our view, is what Luhansk and Donetsk are,” he said, while adding that there would be global chaos if several such countries started emerging.
“There’d be “chaos” in the world if hundreds of new countries emerged, even as there is a conflict between the legal principles of territorial integrity of states and the right of people living in them to self-determination,” he said.
Both were attending the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum which was attended by mostly Russian officials as sanctions and blowbacks from possible attendance at the event due to Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine.
Putin was also quick to point out that the former Soviet Union covered the same territory as “historical Russia”. He made Tokayev feel slightly uncomfortable as he mentioned Kazakhstan but quickly said that no one would think to spoil ties with the ‘fraternal’ neighbor.
The discord between Putin and Tokayev is rare as the former sent forces to Kazakhstan to help quell anti-government protests against the authoritarian regime in the Eurasian nation earlier this year. Both nations are also members of the Eurasian Economic Union, a Moscow-led rival to the European Union.
Putin also commented on Ukraine’s achieving the candidate status from the European Commission – the first step of the very long journey to become a full-fledged member of the European Union (EU).
He said that he is not against Kyiv joining the EU but blamed the conflict on the 2014 overthrow of its former pro-Kremlin president Viktor Yanukovych in Kyiv after he rejected a trade accord with the EU to forge closer ties with Russia.
He also defended his slow approach to the war in eastern Ukraine and said that the military was avoiding a full-scale assault on the Ukrainian position to reduce troop losses and remain focussed on encircling them.
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