Among Russia’s strategic priorities, Asia traditionally played a secondary role compared to the West. In the mid-1990s, then Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov initiated a rapprochement with China and India. Then, in 2014, deteriorating relations between Russia and the West prompted Moscow to begin its “great pivot to the East”.

The year 2022 represented a dual shock for Kazakhstan. In January, the country faced its most severe political crisis since independence, followed in February by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which cast uncertainty over the borders of post-Soviet states. These consecutive crises profoundly shaped Kazakhstan’s domestic and foreign policy.