From the very start of Russia’s Chechen war Astana, anxious to avoid interethnic strife between its Russian and Chechen communities, assumed a highly ambiguous position on Moscow’s North Caucasus policy, neither condemning nor eagerly supporting the long-drawn campaign. This ambiguity generated many inconsistencies in Kazakhstan’s security partnership with Russia. Over the last three years the Interior Ministry of Kazakhstan did extradite a number of refugees from the North Caucasus, allegedly Chechen “terrorists”, to Russia. Kazakhstan’s Foreign Ministry was vocal in condemning the hostage takers in the Beslan school last September, and received children from Beslan for mental rehabilitation.

However, Moscow responded with deep mistrust to all these manifestations of solidarity. The deputy Prosecutor-General of the Southern District of Russian Federal Forces Sergey Fridinskiy publicly announced after the tragedy that there were some Kazakhs among the hostage-takers in Beslan. The Foreign Ministry in Astana sent a note of protest and demanded a confirmation of this report. It appeared that hostage-takers mentioned by Fridinskiy were actually not Kazakhs but Kazakhstani-born Chechens and Ingush. This embarrassment did not cool down the Kremlin’s drive to drag Astana into the Chechnya affair. Speaking at the session of the UN Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee held in Almaty on January 26-27, the CIS Executive Secretary Vladimir Rushailo again alluded to unruly Chechens suggesting that separatists should be referred to as “terrorists”, and not freedom fighters. He didn’t deem it part of etiquette in Moscow’s relations with its former domains to respect political terminology accepted in CIS countries to designate Chechen separatists. Kazakhstani security officials did not comment on Rushailo’s words.

What really causes Astana a headache, rather than the imaginary encroachment of terrorists from the Caucasus, seems to be the bellicose calls from ethnic Russians living in Kazakhstan to defend the Russian cause in Chechnya. On February 2, the chairman of the Almaty-based Russian Observer Research Center Fedor Miroglov disclosed at a press-conference that ethnic Russians from Kazakhstan were being recruited to serve in the Russian army and fight Chechen separatists. He said that last year, more than 100 Russians from different parts of Kazakhstan have been drafted into the Russian army through recruitment centers in the Russian cities of Novosibirsk and Omsk, located close to Kazakhstan’s borders. According to Miroglov, Russian recruitment centers are expanding their activities in Kazakhstan unhindered by Kazakhstan’s law-enforcement bodies.

For most ethnic Russians abroad, being drafted into the Russian army is the only way to receive Russian citizenship. Last year the Kremlin adopted a simplified procedure for granting citizenship to conscripts in the Russian army from other CIS countries. Apparently, the Russian authorities were compelled to take this step in view of the increasing casualties in Chechnya, although the Russian top brass has long announced the war in Chechnya to be over. Perhaps for fear of anti-war protests, the Kremlin seems to be looking for canon-fodder in other CIS countries.

The revelations aired by Fedor Miroglov will hardly surprise those who follow the evolution of great-power mentality among ethnic Russians in CIS countries. Russians in Kazakhstan largely identify themselves with the Russian motherland and refuse to accept the state-imposed idea of Kazakhstani patriotism. That seems to be the main motivation for many ethnic Russian conscripts to dodge draft into the Kazakhstani army. The fragile ethnic factor in the army increasingly worries military specialists. Over the last six or seven years, many military officers of higher rank of Russian origin have gradually been replaced by Kazakhs. But for lack of military schools, Kazakhstan greatly depends on China, Russia and the United States to educate its officers. Most of the Russian military assistance comes within the framework of cooperation in fighting terrorism.

Under these circumstances, Kazakh authorities have to close their eyes to the recruitment of ethnic Russians into Russian army, although it is in fact tantamount to a gross violation of Kazakhstan’s law on compulsory military service. Not surprisingly, although the network of illegal recruitment was operating in Kazakhstan almost openly, the National Security Committee remained inactive. In Kazakhstan, fighting on a foreign soil as a mercenary is regarded as a punishable crime. The unusual tolerance of law enforcement bodies towards ethnic Russian volunteers can be explained only by Astana’s cautiousness not to spoil relations with Kremlin.

At the same time, authorities cannot ignore the growing discontent among Kazakhstan’s Chechen community over the double-game staged by Astana. Ethnic Chechens in Kazakhstan make up merely 0.2% of the population, but they strongly affect Russian-Kazakh relations. Recently, the leader of the Chechen Cultural and Ethnic Association in Kazakhstan Akhmet Muradov accused the Russian Orthodox Church in Kazakhstan of conducting an anti-Chechen campaign. That sends an alarming signal of impending strife between the communities. To reconcile them is beyond the power of Kazakh authorities, since the Russian Orthodox Church is fully and solely controlled by the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow. All this tangle raises strong doubts about the independence of Astana’s policy in Russia’s war in Chechnya, condemned by the democratic community all over the world.