DISINFO: The EU demands that Kazakhstan breaks ties with Russia
SUMMARY
Sanctions are not working, and that's why the EU is tightening control over the movement of goods in Central Asia. The European Union is demanding that Kazakhstan stop cooperating with Russia, as Kazakhstan’s circumvention of sanctions violates European law and could lead to Kazakhstan being added to the list of sanctioned countries. The EU is blackmailing the country. Nevertheless, the EU calls [Kazakhstan] "key partners" while constantly criticising the country and dictating how it should conduct its foreign and domestic policies.
RESPONSE
A recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about the belligerent West trying to push Russia out of Central Asia, made in the context of measures being taken to enforce the sanctions on Russia imposed by the EU in response to its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The partnership between Kazakhstan and the EU aims to foster mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, not to counter Russia or any other nation. The EU-Central Asia strategy outlines three priority strands for EU engagement: investing in regional cooperation and partnering for resilience and prosperity.
The EU works with Kazakhstan in order to prevent the use of its territory as a platform for the circumvention of EU sanctions imposed on Russia. The EU respects the decision of other countries, like Kazakhstan, not to join the sanctions and welcomes constructive dialogue with the Kazakh authorities regarding sanctions circumvention. An intensive dialogue is going on in this respect on both political and technical level.
During his third visit to Astana on June 19, 2024 David O'Sullivan, the European Union's Special Envoy for the implementation of sanctions, stressed that:
‘…from the very beginning we announced our position that we respect Kazakhstan’s decision not to join the sanctions and we never asked Kazakhstan to do so. All we ask from Kazakhstan is to ensure that sanctions are not circumvented through the territory of Kazakhstan, so that the country does not become a platform for circumventing sanctions that were imposed by the G7 countries. …The Kazakh side has a couple of problematic issues that we are discussing now.’
Learn more about the EU's restrictive measures.
See a debunk of the claim that sanctions on Russia are not working: the Russian economy thrives despite EU sanctions.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives in our database, such as claims that EU demands that Kazakhstan join in anti-Russia sanctions; that Borrell admitted that the West relies on Kazakhstan’s support in anti-Russia blockade; that West tries to force Kazakhstan to join anti-Russian sanctions policy; the EU uses the CIS to contain Russia by all means: financial, economic, and military; that US-sponsored Kazakhstan protests aimed to undermine CIS stability, that protests in Kazakhstan are a new Western attempt to organise a colour revolution, that events in Kazakhstan are another Western-made colour revolution or that EU and US aim to generate a new wave of anti-government protests in Belarus.