How Kazakhstan Sees Russia

(PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo) Kazakhstan is known as one of the countries most loyal to Russia—even more so, in many respects, than Belarus. Nur-Sultan (formerly Astana) indulges Moscow less often than Minsk in rigorous bargaining games. Still, since the Ukraine crisis and the formation of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), Kazakhstan has occasionally distanced itself from Russia, at least declaratively. The Kazakhstani government, more generally, maintains some measure of its longstanding, multivector foreign policy: open to all, but without denying Russia’s status as primus inter pares. But what about Kazakhstani public opinion? What do Kazakhstanis think of their northern neighbor, and why?