Kazakhstan will welcome Russians fleeing conscription, its president has said, signalling an indirect condemnation of Moscow’s assault on Ukraine by one of its closest economic and political partners.
“In recent days, many people are arriving to us from Russia,” Kazakhstan’s president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said on Tuesday. “Most of them have been forced to leave because they have no (other) way out of the situation.
“We must show them care and ensure their safety. It is a political and a humanitarian question,” Tokayev said.
He said he would discuss with Moscow the growing number of Russians arriving in the country.
Since September 21, when president Vladimir Putin announced a wide-ranging conscription drive to bolster his forces in Ukraine, about 98,000 Russians have crossed the border into Kazakhstan, that country’s interior ministry said on Tuesday, while more than 64,000 have left. Many Russians have travelled to other destinations via Kazakhstan.
Kazakhstan will not extradite people to Russia if they are accused of avoiding conscription, the interior minister said, according to local media outlets.
“If the conscription offices are looking for someone, this is not a legal basis for extradition,” Kazinform cited the minister as saying.
“If a person is declared internationally wanted, then Kazakhstan will identify and extradite them . . . if there is a criminal offence,” he said.
Kazakhstan, which shares a long border with Russia and is traditionally one of Moscow’s closest partners in the ex-Soviet region, also said on Monday that it would not recognise the possible annexation of parts of Ukraine where Russia is staging referendums.
