DISINFO: The West openly blackmails the Central Asian states
SUMMARY
The West openly blackmails the Central Asian states, alternating between punishments and rewards. Even now, while handing out carrots with one hand, Western officials hold a stick in the other. As part of the 14th sanctions package against Moscow, the European Union imposed restrictions on dozens of companies allegedly helping Russia obtain equipment for its military-industrial complex. Among them are firms from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
RESPONSE
A recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the belligerent West trying to encircle Russia, made in the context of measures being taken to enforce the sanctions on Russia imposed by the EU in response to its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The partnership between Kazakhstan and the EU aims to foster mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, not to counter Russia or any other nation. The EU - Central Asia strategy outlines three priority strands for EU engagement: investing in regional cooperation and partnering for resilience and prosperity.
The EU works with Kazakhstan in order to prevent the use of its territory as a platform for the circumvention of EU sanctions imposed on Russia. EU respects the decision of other countries, like Kazakhstan, not to join the sanctions and welcomes constructive dialogue with the Kazakh authorities regarding sanctions circumvention. An intensive dialogue is going on in this respect on both political and technical level.
“Initially, the EU welcomed the sharp decrease in the re-exports of the most sensitive items from Kazakhstan to Russia after April 2023. However, more recently, the EU has identified that trade has been increasing for all Common High Priority (CHP) goods and has remained stable at a much higher level compared to pre-invasion,” said Francesca Dalboni, a European Commission Spokesperson.
During his third visit to Astana on June 19, 2024 David O'Sullivan, the European Union's Special Envoy for the implementation of sanctions, stressed that:
‘…from the very beginning we announced our position that we respect Kazakhstan’s decision not to join the sanctions and we never asked Kazakhstan to do so. All we ask from Kazakhstan is to ensure that sanctions are not circumvented through the territory of Kazakhstan, so that the country does not become a platform for circumventing sanctions that were imposed by the G7 countries. …The Kazakh side has a couple of problematic issues that we are discussing now.’
The EU does not adopt any secondary sanctions but can take specific actions including listings against operators or individuals that are facilitating sanctions circumvention. As a consequence of these listings, EU operators or individuals would be banned from trading with these entities or individuals.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives in our database, such as claims that EU demands that Kazakhstan join in anti-Russia sanctions; that Borrell admitted that the West relies on Kazakhstan’s support in anti-Russia blockade; that West tries to force Kazakhstan to join anti-Russian sanctions policy; the EU uses the CIS to contain Russia by all means: financial, economic, and military; that US-sponsored Kazakhstan protests aimed to undermine CIS stability, that protests in Kazakhstan are a new Western attempt to organise a colour revolution, that events in Kazakhstan are another Western-made colour revolution or that EU and US aim to generate a new wave of anti-government protests in Belarus.