ATHENS — Kazakhstan is likely to sanction a Russian television personality who gained international notoriety in 2020 for appearing in a racist televised spoof of President Obama.Public remarks by Tigran Keosayan attempting to connect that country and Ukraine were characterized by Kazakhstan’s ministry of foreign affairs as “offensive and biased in essence.” They will likely lead to a ban on his entry to the country.Mr. Keosayan made his comments on his YouTube channel on April 24, apparently in response to a decision by Kazakhstan’s ministry of defense to cancel military parades dedicated to two Russian celebrations: Defender of the Fatherland Day and Victory Day. “Kazakhs, brothers, what kind of ingratitude is this?” Mr. Keosayan said to his YouTube audience. “Look at Ukraine carefully, think seriously. Because, my dears, if you think that you can continue to be so cunning … and you will not get anything for it, you are mistaken.” Kazakhstan was part of the USSR and is part of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, as is Russia. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February, though, relations between the neighboring countries have been rather less than neighborly.The Kazakh foreign ministry spokesman, Aibek Smadiyarov, said the statement by Mr. Keosayan reflected “the views of a certain part of the Russian public and the political establishment, but in no way corresponds to the spirit and content of cooperation between our countries and existing agreements on the level of heads of state.” He added that he believes Mr. Keosayan will “be included in the list of persons undesirable for entry into Kazakhstan.”In March, the EU sanctioned Mr. Keosayan for using his state-funded TV show to claim that the Ukrainian government was unlawful and for espousing anti-Ukraine propaganda. A vocal supporter of Vladimir Putin, Mr. Keosayan is married to the editor-in-chief of the Kremlin-backed RT media organization, Margarita Simonyan. That organization’s website is blocked in the EU, as it is believed to be a propaganda arm of the Russian government.The high-profile fracas over a leading cheerleader for the destructive politics of Vladimir Putin comes at a delicate time for Kazakhstan. There could be an element of tit-for-tat in the Keosayan incident: Earlier this month the Russian equivalent of the FCC, Roskomnadzor, served notice on the Kazakhstani news website NewTimes to quash news about the war in Ukraine, a demand with which that site’s editors complied.Kazakhstan ramped up defense spending this month, and with daily stories of Ukrainian cities under Russian siege and escalatory Kremlin rhetoric about a third world war, it might seem unusual not to do so. The country put its military on a state of high alert in late February, just after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine. The Website Eurasianet reported that since then, Kazakhs have noticed regular movement of troops and military equipment around the country, which in turn sparked reports that forces were mustering along the border with Russia — claims the defense ministry denied, calling the movements part of previously planned military exercises. Inquiries to the embassies of Kazakhstan at Washington and Athens about military maneuvers made have not been answered.It is worth recalling that in early January political violence in Almaty prompted the Kazakh president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, to call on Moscow — under the aegis of the CSTO — to step in and tamp it down. It did so, and handily. Mr. Putin’s vision of neighborly relations is not always especially cordial. In 2014, as violence escalated in eastern Ukraine, Mr. Putin told the first Kazakh president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, that he “created a state on territory where no state had ever existed.” He put it even more bluntly: “The Kazakhs had never had statehood.”Azattyq.org, which bills itself as the first multimedia website in Kazakhstan, reports that “the soil for separatist sentiments in the country has been intensively fertilized in recent years: Russian politicians have declared that Northern Kazakhstan is a ‘gift of the Russian people,’ and some even demanded the return of the territories.” An attack along those lines from a Russian State Duma deputy, Vyacheslav Nikonov, prompted a note of protest from Kazakhstan that has gone unanswered by Moscow.According to Eurasianet, Russian pundits and politicians frequently and falsely say that ethnic Russians, who account for almost 20 percent of Kazakhstan’s population, face discrimination from ethnic Kazakhs. Azattyq.org appears to corroborate the claim, citing the example of a Kazakh journalist who covers the war in Ukraine and reports receiving comments in social media to the tune of, “Let Putin take Uralsk.” The Kazakh city of Uralsk, also called Oral, sits only about 13 miles south of the long border with Russia.
