Russian troops will likely be needed in Kazakhstan for only a few weeks to help quell protests but the deployment will be a test for the Moscow-led alliance that’s sending them, according to a senior legislator.
“I think it will end in a few weeks, not months,” Leonid Kalashnikov, chairman of the committee in Russia’s State Duma responsible for relations with other ex-Soviet states, said in a telephone interview Thursday. “Kazakhstan has faced this situation before,” he said, referring to 2011 protests that authorities crushed without resorting to foreign help.
