Putin’s Next Invasion? – USA Gov Policy

Despite broad-based speculation about the deteriorating health of Russian President Vladimir Putin, he remains in command of the war in Ukraine and now may be harboring grander geopolitical ambitions beyond Ukrainian territory. Recent reports coming out of Central Asia this week point to increased Russian interference in Kazakhstan that could be indicative of a future Russian “special military action” in the country. Over the last three decades Kazakh leaders have heard Russian threats repeated regularly about Moscow’s designs on Kazakhstan. Only six months after Russia annexed Crimean, Putin boldly proclaimed that Kazakhstan never was a country and that “Kazakhs never had any statehood….” Just over a month ago, Communist Party member Sergei Savostyanov, a deputy in the Moscow City Duma (Council), in a written statement supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, added Kazakhstan to the list of locations where Russia should take similar action to that in Ukraine. The other states included the Baltics, Moldova, and Poland.

Moscow has long labeled Kazakhstan’s Guryev Province (now called Atyrau) and Tselinograd Province (now called Akmola) “ancient Russian territories,” although Russians make up only 35% of its population. “Throughout the 1990’s, there were Russian and Cossack groups in Kazakhstan who called for areas in northern Kazakhstan to join Russia,” according to Pannier. Ethnic Kazakhs make up more than 63% of the population today. Gennady Zyuganov, head of the Russian Communist Party, said that northern Kazakhstan was historically Russian territory and that Putin needed to “protect the Russian-speaking population against the “national arbitrariness that is happening in Kazakhstan.” Zyuganov also suggested that Putin should take control of its Baikonur Cosmodrome, located in Kazakhstan, along with the country’s uranium mining industry. Today, Kazakhstan is the world’s leading producer and exporter of uranium.

On December 10, 2020, Vyacheslav Nikonov, a Russian Duma deputy and head of its Education and Science Committee, in December 2020 said on a Russian television that when the Soviet Union formed in 1917, “Kazakhstan simply did not exist as a country, its northern territories were basically uninhabited,” according to Pannier. Three days later, he adds, Duma deputy Yevgeny Fedorov announced that the Belavezha Accords that dissolved the Soviet Union were illegal and Kazakhstan was effectively “easing” Russian land. The worries about Russian designs on Kazakhstan appear to be increasing, according to Pannier. At the end of March, Kazakh Deputy Prosecutor General Bulat Dembayev blatantly issued a warning to the country’s citizenry to take care in what they posted about the “conflict between the Russian Federation and Ukraine” on social networks. Dembayev pointed out that some Kazakh users of social networks have publicly commented on the ongoing events in Ukraine and posted separatist calls regarding the integrity of the territory of Kazakhstan. He reminded them, “Deliberate actions aimed at inciting ethnic hatred, public calls to violate the integrity of Kazakhstan” and are punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

A rally opposing the Russian war was cancelled recently when Kazakh officials refused the group a permit to gather. Pannier says Kazakh leaders can try to “downplay the significance of these comments, but it is troubling that Russian officials continue to make them. And even more so since there has been no effort from Putin or any other Russian official to put an end to it.”

Malcolm Davis, writing in Clear Defense this week, notes that if Putin does not go nuclear “It’s also possible that Russia could decide to escalate at a conventional level by extending its attacks beyond Ukraine.” He points out that Russia is already making implied threats of extending the war to the disputed Transnistria region of Moldova. That would dramatically increase the threat to Romania, a NATO member, and destabilize the Moldovan state, many of whose residents are ethnically Romanian. Kazakhstan might not be that far behind.

Last month Kazakhstan’s deputy foreign minister, Roman Vassilenko, said the country would welcome companies leaving Russia that wanted to relocate there and that his country would not want to be on the wrong side of a new “iron curtain.” Recently, Kazakhstan officials have refrained from criticizing Russian military actions in Ukraine although Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev is reported in Al Jazeera had earlier this year stated that that all countries must strictly adhere to the norms and principles of the United Nations charter.

Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Department

Quick Analysis

Judge Merchan continues to deny justice to Donald Trump

In August of 2024, we discussed the US Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. United States. We described the three tiered system enunciated by Chief Justice Roberts to determine whether or not the actions taken by the President of the United States are entitled to immunity from criminal prosecution or not. The first tier are acts within the President’s constitutionally mandated authority which are subject to “absolute immunity.” The next are acts that may have “presumptive immunity,” and are subject to examination with evidence that rebuts the presumption of immunity. The third are acts which are unofficial, and which enjoy no immunity. In September, we also discussed the effect this decision should have on the New York County criminal case currently pending against President-elect Trump before Judge Juan Merchan. We cited to a CNN report, which described the evidence used against Donald Trump at the trial of that matter: “Trump’s lawyers pointed to testimony at trial – including from White House officials Hope Hicks and Madeleine Westerhout – they argued should not have come before the jury…'[a]ll of Hicks’s testimony concerning events in 2018, when she was serving as the White House Communications Director, concerned official acts based on [Presidential] authority for which President Trump is entitled to absolute immunity,’ Trump’s attorneys argued. ‘[the Supreme Court’s ruling] specifically forbids prosecutors from offering ‘testimony’ from a President’s ‘advisers’ for the purpose of ‘probing the official act.’” Sure enough, as Chief Justice Roberts stated in the Presidential Immunity decision, “[a]llowing prosecutors to ask or suggest that the jury probe official acts for which the President is immune would thus raise a unique risk that the jurors’ deliberations will be prejudiced by their views of the President’s policies and performance while in office. The prosaic tools on which the Government would have courts rely are an inadequate safeguard against the peculiar constitutional concerns implicated in the prosecution of a former President.” At the time, we stated that “Judge Merchan allowed testimony regarding Donald Trump’s official acts as President, acts which enjoy absolute immunity and which cannot be used against him, or even be entered into evidence in a criminal trial, a situation which could have been avoided had Judge Merchan delayed the trial until he’d received the guidance of the US Supreme Court.” Nonetheless, we predicted that Judge Merchan “will find a way to justify his actions once again, and let stand the unlawful conviction of former President Donald Trump.” You know how much we hate to say we were right…but…we were right. “This Court…finds that the evidence related to the [President-elect’s] claims relate entirely to unofficial conduct and thus, receive no immunity protections,” Judge Merchan wrote in his December 16, 2024 decision. “Further, even if this Court were to deem all of the contested evidence…as official conduct falling within the outer perimeter of Defendant’s Presidential authority, it would still find that the People’s use of these acts as evidence of the decidedly personal acts of falsifying business records poses no danger of intrusion on the authority and function of the Executive Branch, a conclusion amply supported by non-motive-related evidence.” In so ruling, the Court denied Donald Trump’s motion to dismiss his New York County conviction. Let us examine these findings, in light of the evidence admitted at the President-elect’s trial, and then compare that evidence to the acts granted absolute immunity by the US Supreme Court. In his decision, Judge Merchan discusses the testimony of Hope Hicks, who served as the Communications Director for the Trump White House. “Defendant argues that in her roles at the White House, any communications between Ms. Hicks and Defendant must receive absolute immunity…as Defendant’s ability to speak freely to Ms. Hicks was a core function of the Executive. According to Defendant, because Ms. Hicks wielded executive power on his behalf, authority that exists pursuant to Article II of the Constitution, any communications [President Trump] had with [Hicks] are subject to absolute immunity,” the Court wrote. Judge Merchan also noted that “[t]he People argue that the communications Defendant had with Ms. Hicks…constitute unofficial acts not entitled to any level of immunity.” In his inevitable agreement with the arguments presented by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s office, Judge Merchan wrote “Defendant’s argument that any communication he had with Ms. Hicks is subject to absolute immunity by virtue of the position she held in the White House is mistaken…the President himself may speak in his unofficial capacity as a candidate or party leader, and certainly he can do so in his private capacity as well. Any argument that private conduct transforms into official conduct by communicating about the same to an individual with a particular title is without merit.” Thus, it is Judge Merchan’s position that the conversations Donald Trump had with his Communications Director are not entitled to immunity, even though those discussions were held at the White House, while Donald Trump was serving as President of the United States, merely because those discussions were not related to official Executive Branch activities. Sounds possibly reasonable – until you examine the Presidential Immunity decision more closely. In September, we wrote that “the statement made by Chief Justice Roberts in his majority opinion in the Presidential Immunity case [is significant]; ‘Presidents cannot be indicted based on conduct for which they are immune from prosecution…[t]estimony or private records of the President or his advisers probing such conduct may not be admitted as evidence at trial.’” This statement by Chief Justice Roberts points to a blanket immunity for ANY discussions had between the President and his advisors, regardless of the nature of those communications. Further, we noted that the Supreme Court issued the following warning: “[t]he government…contends that a jury could ‘consider’ evidence concerning the President’s official acts ‘for limited and specified purposes,’ and that such evidence would ‘be admissible.’” In rejecting that argument, Chief Justice Roberts states “[t]hat proposal threatens to eviscerate the immunity we have recognized. It would permit a prosecutor to do indirectly what he cannot do directly – invite the jury to examine acts for which a President is immune from prosecution […]