The threats of Russian troops capturing northern Kazakhstan, which are being voiced by Russian propagandists, should be taken very seriously, says historian and publicist Bakhtiyar Albani, nephew of Dinmukhamed Kunayev (the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Kazakh SSR, who fell into disgrace with the Soviet leadership in the 1980s). According to him, Russia will not stop as long as it exists within its current borders.
“We must always keep this in mind and always remember the historical traditions of the Russian state itself, regardless of its structure. The entire Russian empire has always developed extensively, only at the expense of the captured territories. There has never been any qualitative growth,” Albani said in the Dope Soz podcast, Censor.NET reports.
The historian recalled that before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian propaganda talked about how “Donbas had been bombed for 8 years”, and before that, “all Crimean residents were oppressed” and “forced to learn Ukrainian”.
“They always refer to the language. What happened with the Ukrainian language, they say the same thing about the Kazakh language, that they are forcing it,” Albani noted.
According to the historian, even during the Soviet Union, no matter who was in charge, the Kremlin authorities were constantly invading and seizing new territories, such as the Czech Republic, Finland, and Hungary. Immediately after the collapse of the USSR, the Kremlin “bit off” Transnistria from Moldova when “there was no Putin”.
“This trend has continued and will continue. After Karabakh, time passes and Georgia, Adjara and South Ossetia come along. Some more time passes, and then we get Crimea. Well, the process is going on, we cannot be blind. We see that the same thing is happening again. This plan, this idea, has never left the Kremlin. It is sitting there and will always sit there as long as the Kremlin regime exists in its current form and Russia exists within its current borders,” Albani said.
At the same time, the publicist notes that against the backdrop of the Russian war in Ukraine, some Russian subjects are awakening to national identity
“There are outbreaks in Yakutia, even in Komi, where activists are persecuted everywhere, and Buryatia,” the historian said.
