Putin dreams of a Russian 'sphere of influence.' Kazakhstan's protesters are the latest to push back
MOSCOW — To Russian President Vladimir Putin, the collapse of the Soviet Union “was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”
He made that statement in 2005, just months after Ukrainians launched their “Orange Revolution” and began to shake off Russia’s influence in the country, spurring Kyiv’s pro-democracy leanings. Two years earlier, an uprising in the Caucasus country of Georgia had ousted its Soviet-holdover president.
Putin dreams of a Russian 'sphere of influence.' Kazakhstan's protesters are the latest to push back.
Although Putin clings to Soviet nostalgia — and to a self-drawn map of Moscow’s “sphere of influence” that covers much of the former empire — the countries surrounding Russia have other ideas. The latest example is sweeping anti-government protests in Kazakhstan that have rattled a political system entrenched for three decades and brought in Russian-led forces to try to keep a lid on the unrest.
Putin has long accused the West of trying to curtail Moscow’s reach. Now, he is portraying Russia as more threatened than ever and is demanding guarantees from the United States and NATO that the military alliance will stay out of what he considers the Kremlin’s turf, and he has called for the removal of NATO infrastructure installed in Eastern Europe after 1997.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/putin-dreams-of-a-russian-sphere-of-influence-kazakhstans-protesters-are-the-latest-to-push-back/ar-AASzCdL