MOSCOW - A Russia-led military alliance said on Thursday it will send peacekeeping forces to Kazakhstan after the country president asked for help in controlling the protests that escalated into violence, including the seizure and setting afire of government buildings.
Protesters in Kazakhstan's largest city stormed the presidential residence and the mayor's office Wednesday, setting both on fire, according to news reports, as demonstrations sparked by a rise in fuel prices in the Central Asian nation.
The police fired on some protesters at the residence in Almaty before fleeing. They have repeatedly clashed with demonstrators in recent days, deploying water cannons in the freezing weather, and firing tear gas and concussion grenades.
The Kazakh Interior Ministry said eight police officers and national guard members were killed in the unrest and more than 300 were injured. No figures on civilian casualties were released.
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev appealed for help from the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a Moscow-based alliance of six former Soviet countries. The CSTO s council approved sending an unspecified number of peacekeepers, according to Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, the council's chairman.
Tokayev had earlier pledged to take harsh measures to quell the unrest and declared a two-week state of emergency for the whole country, expanding one that had been announced for both the capital Nur-Sultan and the largest city of Almaty, which imposed an overnight curfew and restricted movement into and around urban areas.
The government resigned in response to the unrest. The global watchdog organization Netblocks said the country was experiencing a pervasive internet blackout, and Kazakh news sites became inaccessible late in the day. Internet access was restored in Almaty by early Thursday, according to Russian news agency Tass.
Although the protests began over a near-doubling of prices for liquefied petroleum gas that is widely used as vehicle fuel, their size and rapid spread showed wider discontent in the country that has been under the rule of the Soviet Union since 1991.
Tokayev claimed that the unrest was led by terrorist bands that had received help from unspecified other countries. He said rioters had seized five airliners in an attack on Almaty s airport, but the deputy mayor later said the airport had been cleared of marauders and was normal.
Kazakhstan, the ninth-largest country in the world, borders Russia to the north and China to the east and has extensive oil reserves that make it strategic and economically important. Despite these reserves and mineral wealth, discontent over poor living conditions is strong in some parts of the country. Many Kazakhs also chafe at the dominance of the ruling party, which holds more than 80% of the seats in parliament.
After thousands of demonstrators gathered outside the presidential residence in Almaty, Tass reported that it was on fire and that protesters, some wielding firearms, were trying to break in. The report, which was filed from Kazakhstan, shows that police fled the residence after shooting at demonstrators.
According to earlier reports in Kazakh media, many of the demonstrators who converged on the mayoral office carried clubs and shields. Tass said the building was engulfed in flames.
Protesters also broke into the Almaty office of the Russian-based Mir television and radio company and destroyed some equipment, the broadcaster said. Later on, a crowd broke into the Almaty building of the Kazakh national broadcaster.
The protests started Sunday in Zhanaozen, a city in the west where government resentment was strong in the wake of a 2011 strike by oil workers, in which police fatally shot 15 people. In the following days they spread across the country, and on Tuesday large demonstrations broke out in Nur-Sultan and Almaty, the former capital.
The protests seem to have no identifiable leader or demands. Many of the demonstrators shouted old man go, an apparent reference to Nursultan Nazarbayev, the country's first president who continued to exert enormous influence after his resignation in 2019.
In an earlier statement to the nation, Tokayev said that we intend to act with maximum severity regarding law-breakers. He promised to make political reforms and announced that he would assume the leadership of the national security council. The latter is potentially significant because the council had been headed by Nazarbayev, who was president from 1991 until he resigned in 2019.
Nazarbayev ruled Kazakhstan's politics and his rule was marked by a moderate cult of personality. Critics say he has effectively instituted a clan system in government.
After the demonstrations spread to Nur-Sultan and Almaty, the government announced its resignation, but Tokayev said the ministers would stay in their positions until a new Cabinet is formed, making it uncertain whether the resignations will have a significant impact.
The government moved away from price controls as part of the move to a market economy, which led to doubled the price for the gas called LPG at the beginning of the year.