He spoke about this in an interview with Ukraine.ru.
- Oleg Ivanovich, what is the current situation with coronavirus in Kazakhstan as a whole and specifically in your Karaganda region, how successful is vaccination?
- From a medical point of view, the situation is stable, there is no total quarantine, but everyone is tired of restrictions. Most of the schoolchildren and students are telecommuting, which also does not cause joy. The Ministry of Education does not condemn only the lazy: due to the low quality of education "across the distance", some of the parents transferred their children to distance learning, too, but to other countries. And the Ministry of Education, being unable to guarantee the level of education, forbade Kazakhstani schoolchildren to study abroad.
The Russian vaccine "Sputnik V" was registered in Kazakhstan on February 15, and the production of the first batch in the amount of 90 thousand doses began at the Karaganda pharmaceutical complex. From February 26, it will begin to be sent to the regions, and by July the production volume is planned to be increased to 2 million doses. In total, it is planned to cover 6 million Kazakhstanis with vaccinations. At the first stage, doctors will receive the vaccine, then teachers and security officials.
- How did the results of the parliamentary elections affect the scenarios for the transit of power in Kazakhstan?
- In the country, as there were two centers of power - the current and the first president (Kasym-Zhomart Tokayev and Nursultan Nazarbayev. - Ed.) - and it remained. Fundamentally, nothing has changed in the Mazhilis (the country's parliament - Ed.): The same three parties - Nur Otan, Ak Zhol and former communists. The latter, after the announcement of the date of the elections, suddenly changed their colors and were renamed into the People's Party, so as not to fall under the skating rink of the impending decommunization.
- For many years you have been fighting the large corporation ArcelorMittal Temirtau (AMT), considering it a threat to the Kazakh economy. What is the essence of your criticism and at what stage of the struggle are you now?
- How does a transnational corporation behave in a third world country? There are a lot of textbook examples here. And not only during the colonization of Africa, but also in the modern history of Kazakhstan. 40 thousand people worked at the Karmetkombinat, including a social block - kindergartens, sanatoriums, pioneer camps. Produced 5 million tons of steel. Now the number of employees has been increased to 12 thousand, and production to 2.5-3 million tons.
The equipment is falling apart, there is no investment in modernization, and the emissions of harmful substances into the atmosphere are simply prohibitive. But there are preferences from the budget, cheap labor, mutual understanding with compradors and no responsibility. As an example: "ArcelorMittal Temirtau" has debts to local contractors for several billion tenge - more than $ 7 million. So the contractors were directly told: "You will not receive money."
The company initiated lawsuits for my articles, but the court was on my side. Director of Legal Affairs of AMT Galymzhan Kunakbayev blackmailed me, trying to force me to refuse to cover the activities of AMT. I recorded our conversation on a dictaphone. A criminal case was initiated under article 158 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan "Obstruction of the legitimate professional activities of a journalist", but the police department of the Karaganda region successfully destroyed it.
In general, my struggle with the "venerable investor" is such a Sisyphean work against the background of the classic love relationship between the comprador elite and the colonizer. However, do what you must, and what is destined will happen. Carthage will be destroyed anyway.
- Moscow offered to build a nuclear power plant in Kazakhstan using Russian technologies. In turn, President Tokayev stated that the construction of a nuclear power plant in the republic is not yet planned, adding that the opinion of the population should be taken into account in this matter. Why do Kazakhstanis not want to build this station?
- First of all, it must be said that the topic of Eurasian integration itself is not being properly promoted at the state level: in the media we just see news on the EAEU, but not its promotion. While the opponents of our commonwealth - local Westerners - are quite active, they are the ones who oppose the construction of a Russian nuclear power plant.
So this is not a question for citizens, but more for the government, which does not create a demand for integration among Kazakhstanis and does not like to talk about the projected shortage of electricity by 2027, but loves fashionable and beautiful solar power plants.
- When Kazakh nationalists run out of arguments, they start talking about Pan-Turkism and Great Turan. Are these ideas really so widespread in the republic?
- There are not so many people supporting this idea, and mostly those who are not inclined to simple analysis. Here we have a video shown on Turkish television based on yet another "analytical" nonsense from Stratfor. According to this forecast, by 2050, Turkey's zone of influence and even its structure will include: North Africa, the countries of the Arabian Peninsula, the Caucasus, Rostov and Astrakhan regions of the Russian Federation and even the republics of Central Asia. With Kazakhstan, of course.
But Turkey is not even a regional power, it is only trying to play it. Due to the accumulated internal tension, it will not be consolidated, but will disintegrate within the next 5-7 years.
Our nationalists are ready to surrender the country to anyone, just not to be a member of integration associations with Russia. And they do not want to rush into the arms of the Celestial Empire, realizing that the Chinese will assimilate Kazakhstan in 20 years. At the same time, it is impossible to integrate with the conditional West: it only needs Kazakhstan as a territory that is already being set on fire in order to create problems for both Russia and China at the same time.
The supporters of the Turkish path have one problem: there is no understanding that Turkey, or rather Erdogan, considers only itself great. And all the other members of the hypothetical "Great Turan" will never be enrolled in the category of great ones, let alone brothers. It is enough to look at the Turkish Kurds here. So in this case, brothers are only megalomania of some and extreme nationalism of others.
- Do you remember the scandal around the statements of Russian politicians Nikonov and Fedorov, who were considered provocative in Kazakhstan. In general, do you think that Moscow and Nur-Sultan, within the framework of bilateral relations, do not need to voice controversial issues at all, or is it better to sit down and discuss all mutual claims?
- The leaders of Russia and Kazakhstan should work out and voice a common position on the most painful topics and close the discussion on them. Otherwise, others will begin to shake them.
We have already sounded a few strange ideas, for example, about camps for those who do not know the state language and about the fact that children should not be sent to Russian schools, because when they grow up, they will hand over their parents to a nursing home. However, there was no reaction from the authorities to these provocative statements.
At the same time, the Chairman of the Senate of the Republic of Kazakhstan Maulen Ashimbaev, speaking at the round table "Thorny path to freedom: a historical view of the consequences of Asharshylyk" about the famine of the 30s, expressed himself quite extensively. Here is an extensive quote from a message from the Senate press service.
We will soon find out what conclusion scientists historians will give on this really painful and important topic for the entire Kazakh people.
However, the presence at the event of the American professor Sarah Cameron, who is called “a specialist in the study of hunger at the beginning of the last century in the countries of the Soviet Union,” who published the book “The Hungry Steppe. Hunger, violence and the creation of Soviet Kazakhstan”, suggests that, most likely, it will not do without politicization.
By the way, the American "specialists" themselves should remember about the suppression of their own hunger during the Great Depression, racial segregation, the Ku Klux Klan and the Lynching Courts. Well, do not forget about the genocide of the Indians.
- You said in your last interview that, in order to unite, you need to finally delimit yourself, and that this delimitation is now taking place along the line of the EAEU. Please explain what you mean.
- The EAEU is viewed by all participants, except Russia, as a trade union, as a common market where one can “trade like a brother”, but without a political component. Even within the framework of the Union State, Lukashenka tore more than one shirt on his chest, “defending Nezalezhnasts”.
In the EurAsEC market, each seller thinks not about the good of the union, but about his own interests. It is them that everyone needs to clearly define, clearly articulate and link with the wishes of other members of the association. The same Old Man beats to blood, protecting and promoting, for example, Belarusian milk. Who prevents others from doing this using agreed mechanisms?
In Kazakhstan, there was an opinion that since we came up with the Eurasian Union, then “let's, comrades-allies, study, build the EAEU and don't forget about the founding fathers - bring in your share”. But suddenly it turned out that such a policy does not work, and the promotion of the Eurasian ideas themselves in Kazakhstan is three-plus. After all, only in the middle of 2019 we created the Ministry of Trade and Integration.
And our leaders began to realize that in order to live happily ever after, just getting married is not enough. It turns out that you have to plow every day, building these happy relationships.
Local trade wars between the EAEU countries, as well as members of any other integration association, will always be, there is no getting around it. But for the use of unconventional weapons will be put in place. Within the framework of the agreed rules.
Here, more than 80 million Iran is going to join us. So it is necessary not only to happily think about its very capacious market, but also that it will compete with many of our producers: from consumer goods and agricultural products to steel and cement. And this is already a common interest.
Now, during the disintegration of the unipolar world into the world of pan-regions, it is necessary to determine not only trade, but also politics: who we are, what we want, where we are going and, most importantly, with whom we are going. Therefore, now in Kazakhstan there is a surge of nationalist publications, and discussion of the theme of the famine of the 1930s has begun.
So, speaking in the old regime, "Lenin's ideas are correct":
“Before uniting and in order to unite, we must first decisively and definitely dissociate ourselves. Otherwise, our unification would be only a fiction, covering up the existing disorder and preventing its radical elimination. 1900 Statement by the editorial board of the Iskra newspaper.
Only now there is no time to think for a long time.
