As if Russia wasn’t isolated enough already. Or hadn’t damaged his reputation as a reliable player in hydrocarbons enough.
After interrupting gas deliveries last week to several European countries including France, under technical pretexts, Moscow cut Monday morning the transit of Kazakh oil exports via the CPC terminal of its port of Novorossisk, on the Black Sea.
When the Kremlin is angry it always reacts like this
The authorities’ explanation – the need to urgently neutralize unexploded bombs dating from the Second World War at the bottom of the Black Sea near the port of Novorossiysk – will no doubt struggle to convince… This terminal, with a capacity of 1.4 million barrels per day (3% of the international trade in black gold) transports the majority of the oil exported by Kazakhstan, which in a few years has risen to tenth place among world exporters.
This measure comes against a background of deteriorating relations between the two countries, Kazakhstan having decided two weeks ago to change the name of its oil to KEBCO (Kazakhstan Export Blend Crude Oil) in order to avoid any confusion with Russian oil and therefore possible Western sanctions.
The pipeline shutdown comes mostly two days after an embarrassing moment for Vladimir Putin at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum last Saturday. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, one of the few high-level leaders to take part in this conference boycotted by the West, declared in front of a pale Russian president that he did not consider the two separatist territories of the Eastern Ukraine recognized by the Kremlin, the republics of Lugansk and Donetsk. Just as he “did not recognize Taiwan”. Although a member of a free trade zone with Russia and Belarus, Kazakhstan has important economic ties with China, as well as European countries… The Russian president replied to his counterpart by scratching his first name, quite a symbol.
⚡️President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Tokayev called “LNR” and “DNR” quasi-state territories. pic.twitter.com/pBoSMQe2fm
—Flash (@Flash43191300) June 18, 2022
Сегодня Касым-Жомарта Кемелевича Токаева Путин назвал Камижамом Ишемильевичем. pic.twitter.com/lUcIFEM9aa
— Проф. Преображенский (@prof_preobr) June 17, 2022
A dissension all the more remarkable since a revolt in Kazakhstan in January had been put down with the help of 3,000 Russian paratroopers, within the framework of a mutual military assistance agreement, the CSTO, triggered for the first time in responds to an internal rebellion. President Tokayev However, he insisted on Sunday that Russia “should not try to claim the role of savior, because no one is going to serve and bow down”.
A firm declaration, which will be experienced as a provocation in Moscow, in response to that of President Putin according to which the former USSR, which included Kazakhstan in particular, covered the same territory as “historic Russia”. Enough to send shivers down the spine to the Kazakh president, so much this sentence resembles the manifesto of the master of the Kremlin last summer according to which Russians and Ukrainians occupied “the same historical and spiritual space”.