During talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday, July 25, in Omsk, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev proposed freezing the war in Ukraine. He stated: “We have always treated the Ukrainian people, their culture, and their language with respect, and we believe that the nature of this conflict is not entirely clear to many, including ourselves.” However, Estonian publicist Andrei Kuzichkin believes that, in reality, Kazakhstan’s president was conveying a message to Putin from Xi Jinping. The question remains whether Putin is capable of interpreting it correctly – and there are serious doubts about that.
Why did Tokayev suddenly call for a freeze on the war?
Immediately after Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s speech at the forum in Omsk, Russian public channels exploded with outrage. This was hardly surprising: within just a few minutes, Tokayev called into question the ideological framework that the Kremlin had spent years using to justify its war against Ukraine. His statements about the absence of clear reasons for the conflict, his recognition of Ukrainian statehood, his warning about the destructive consequences of the war for Russia, and his call to freeze hostilities came as a genuine cold shower for Vladimir Putin. More precisely, they amounted to a public political slap in the face.
How did President Tokayev dare to take such a confrontational step? Russian Z-patriots have already showered him with insults and even threatened that Kazakhstan could become the next target of “the liberation of Russian lands.” Meanwhile, Kazakhstan, which shares the world’s longest continuous land border with Russia – more than 7,500 kilometers – has a population of around 20 million, does not possess nuclear weapons, and remains heavily dependent on Moscow in both economic and strategic spheres. Objectively, the country remains vulnerable to potential Russian pressure.
Is Beijing behind Kazakhstan’s president?
In my view, Tokayev was not the initiator of a statement that so deeply unsettled the Russian establishment. Rather, he acted as a mediator, delivering a message to Vladimir Putin from Xi Jinping. At the same time, China, as a potential security guarantor for Kazakhstan, appears to be a far more reliable partner than Russia.
In essence, for several decades Beijing has been pursuing a policy of “quiet expansion” both in Russia’s eastern regions and in Kazakhstan. Around 85% of China’s overland trade turnover with the countries of Central Asia and Europe passes through Kazakhstan. By the end of 2025, bilateral trade between China and Kazakhstan had reached nearly $50 billion, the total volume of accumulated foreign direct investment amounted to around $30 billion, more than 8,500 companies with Chinese capital participation were operating in Kazakhstan, and the annual volume of joint projects was estimated at approximately $8 billion. For comparison, Kazakhstan’s trade turnover with Russia amounted to around $28 billion – almost half the level of its trade with China.
Clearly, Kazakhstan has become a crucial geopolitical space where Russia and China compete for influence. If relations between Astana and Moscow had previously been based primarily on their shared historical legacy, the war against Ukraine has significantly changed the priorities of Kazakhstan’s leadership.
Kazakhstan Is Shifting Its Political Orientation from Russia to China
From a reliable ally and advantageous partner, Russia has transformed into a potential source of military threat and a problematic economic partner for Kazakhstan. This is why Astana has been actively strengthening its relations with Beijing in recent years. And this process is not limited to economic cooperation. China is building its own center of global geopolitical influence, within which Russia and Kazakhstan appear to be assigned subordinate roles. It seems that Putin either does not understand this, does not want to understand it, or is still attempting to resist such a development. Kazakhstan’s leadership, by contrast, is demonstrating far greater flexibility. In this context, Tokayev’s speech in Omsk can be interpreted as the transmission of a signal from Beijing to Putin and, at the same time, as a demonstration of Kazakhstan’s strategic shift toward China.
Why did this happen precisely now and in this particular form? Until recently, both China and Kazakhstan, like many other countries, were to some extent beneficiaries of the war in Ukraine. Russian companies conducted financial operations through Kazakh banks, while parallel imports of sanctioned goods generated significant revenues for the Kazakh economy. China purchased Russian energy resources at discounted prices and supplied dual-use goods to both Russia and Ukraine.
War Is Becoming a Problem for Both Kazakhstan and China
However, the changing nature of the hostilities, accompanied by a sharp increase in the intensity of Ukraine’s long-range strikes against Russian territory – including attacks on pipeline infrastructure and terminals through which Kazakh energy resources are exported – has significantly increased the risks to Kazakhstan’s foreign trade. An additional factor has been the European Union’s 21st sanctions package, which substantially expanded restrictions on cooperation with Russia. China has also encountered new challenges: for the first time, fourteen Chinese companies were simultaneously placed under EU sanctions. Moreover, the possibility of further tightening of U.S. sanctions remains. How realistic this threat will prove to be remains to be seen, but the risk itself is becoming increasingly tangible.
I have long argued that the key to ending the war in Ukraine lies in Beijing. Today, China remains Vladimir Putin’s only truly influential ally. If Beijing abandons its strategic cooperation with Moscow, the Russian political regime will find itself in an extremely difficult position. As long as the benefits of this partnership outweighed the reputational costs, Xi Jinping ignored numerous appeals from world leaders to use his influence over the Kremlin’s leader, Putin, and bring the war to an end.
However, China’s economy is facing growing difficulties. The European Union is steadily tightening restrictions on Chinese companies, and the prospects of further deterioration in relations with the West are becoming increasingly apparent. At the same time, the Kremlin continues to insist on achieving military victory and rejects the possibility of freezing the conflict, significantly reducing the prospects for a diplomatic settlement. Perhaps this is precisely why Beijing, whose diplomatic tradition generally avoids public confrontations, decided to use President Tokayev’s visit to Russia as an opportunity to send Vladimir Putin an unmistakably clear political message through him: “End it!”
However, Putin failed to heed the signal, thereby demonstrating how disconnected he has become from reality. All that remains is to watch how events unfold from here. Judging by the current situation, we can expect many more unexpected turns ahead.
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