The Government of Kazakhstan declared intention to establish more considerate control of re-exports, so to ensure that the goods and commodities included into the lists of sanctions dropped on Russia do not cross the Kazakh-Russian border. The new measures of control shall be established in this upcoming Month of April.
Stop the Stream
For more considerate control, the goods and commodities will be escorted from dispatch to end destination points, so to visually make sure that such goods and commodities do not cross the Kazakh-Russian border.
Kazakhstan introduced new measures, after West, once again, reminded the country of secondary sanctions to be dropped on legal entities that, probably, are helping Russia. We must make reference to numerous publications in the Western Mass Media, reporting cases when Kazakhstan was caught allowing transit delivery of laundry machines, television sets and used cars to Russia. Western Mass Media express concerns that those goods will be disassembled in Russia, and some parts of them will be used, as spares for tanks and other types of war machinery, used in the Russo-Ukrainian armed confrontation.
The Telegraph reports that not only Kazakhstan, but also Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Turkiye and UAE take part in shipment of goods that may be used war purposes. The European Union chose to, prior to a sanction punch, send a humble warning to the said countries.
Kazakh top officials verbally confirm the plans to follow the rules. The Financial Times reports that Kazakhstan invented a special software application allowing to perform the real-time tracking of the movement of exported goods and commodities.
Of course, not by Kazakhstan alone… Western partners should realize that when they shut down the traffic on the Kazakh-Russian border, Russia’s other powerful neighbors will remain – Turkiye and China. Those countries did not impose any limitations on their trade with Russia.
He Who Orders, Pays?
Although Kazakhstan acts in the categoric way, declaring that there will be no helping Russia, while Western partners seem to trust Kazakhstan, Russia has its own vision on the situation.
Russian political observers think, that the new limitations system will be put on paper, but there will be no practical implementation of the paper, that is why Russia should not fear suspension of imports from Kazakhstan. First of all, because out of all neighboring countries, Kazakhstan has the longest border with Russia, and in the previous year and amount of exports from Kazakhstan increased by 25% totaling USD8.8 billion. In the recent years, the new conditions in the world brought new investments to Kazakhstan in the never-before-seen amounts. Obvious is the fact that it will be hard for Kazakhstan to give them up.
Reuters reports that in February, an anonymous source in the Kazakh leadership told that ceasing cross-border traffic will be extremely detrimental to Kazakhstan, especially considering that there will be no compensation for that. In the course of an Astana visit, US State Secretary Antony Blinken was asked whether the USA were ready to make up for losses to be incurred in by Kazakhstan.
Blinken diplomatically answered that the USA would take all steps necessary to reduce losses to be incurred by Central Asian economies, but nothing about compensations. The only thing that States can guarantee is the licenses, protecting companies from secondary sanctions.
By the way, so far not a single Kazakh company was included into sanctions lists. But we need to realize that within the borders of the present reality, things may change, because we are, at present, in a tight position. Membership in the Eurasian Economic Union may force Kazakhstan to neglect the Western rules, because within the territory of the sad Union, goods and commodities travel freed from customs clearance. It is unlikely, that Kazakhstan has intention to farm-out from the Union, which unlikeliness was confirmed in June 2022, when President Tokayev personally confronted rumors that Kazakhstan would leave the Eurasian Economic Union.
Riding Two Horses At One Time
Another big question is for how long Kazakhstan will manage to maintain its multi-vector foreign policy. Foreign experts believe that it will be for a long time. All because foreign companies invest in Kazakh fields, deposits and entities, while in Russia the only place to invest is the securities market, which market may be easily relocated. Nobody wants to waste billions of dollars, with this respect.
On the other side, if several countries fall victims to Western sanctions together with Russia, the latter will acquire itself “unwilful” allies, who will have nothing else left to do, but doing business with Russia openly. It is unlikely that the European Union is interested in that.
Independent political and economic observers share opinion that if Kazakhstan is given opportunities to further maintain multi-vector foreign policy, Kazakhstan will avail itself of that. And not because, our Republic wants to side with somebody, but because we have our own national interests.
Russian experts share opinion that if Kazakhstan does fulfil its promise and suspends deliveries to Russia, Russians will begin thinking that “somethings needs to be done”.
“ I got this impression that for us, the worse the things are, the better. Only given that shall our people start making moves” – says Sergey Sotnikov, Director of LLC Reverse and Chair of Committee on Cargo Shipment and Logistics (Russia). We will see, how the new measures manifest themselves in practice.
