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Comment by vbezhenar | Hacker News Reader

Sources are sketchy.

Those sources I've found report that Kazakhstani bailiffs put an arrest to Russian property (basically they can't move it out of the country) and forbade some manager to leave country as well. I'm not sure if English meaning of word seizure includes those actions, I thought that seizure is more like expropriation and that's not what happening here.

I think that's not serious. It's either some politics or just bureaucracy. While Kazakhstan is not fully supporting Russia, turning away from it seems like an economic suicide.

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> While Kazakhstan is not fully supporting Russia, turning away from it seems like an economic suicide.

Obviously they're not going to cut all ties, but it's a good time for Kazakhs (or any other ex-Soviet population still in the Russian orbit) to renegotiate contracts. The bear is in a position of weakness both on diplomatic, economic, and military terms.

Possibly that's a "lien" then rather than seizure?

> A claim upon a part of another's property that arises because of an unpaid debt related to that property and that operates as an encumbrance on the property until the debt is satisfied.

> turning away from it seems like an economic suicide

On the other hand, not turning away from it might be literal suicide.

Nah, we in NATO don’t blame landlocked countries with small economies for having, well, ambiguous relations with nearby Russia. It’s the places that have a choice, like Serbia, India, and Hungary, that are at risk of moving themselves onto our list of geopolitical rivals.

Oh, come on. The only reason you have not destroyed our economy with sanctions yet is because your oil companies have deep investments in our oil industry in western parts of the country. Additionally we cover about 50% of the world's uranium supply. Even before the war started, our khan put more than 300 people in the ground to preserve his rule (many of them random women and children; and that's according to official sources whom everyone considers to be seriously biased), and your politicians looked the other way because it didn't tip the scales far enough.

Just checked the GDPs of Serbia v Kazakhstan v Hungary.

Serbia: 63.08 billion USD (2021)

Kazakhstan: 197.1 billion USD (2021)

Hungary: 181.8 billion USD (2021)

Per google, sources include World Bank.

Hungary is doing alot of things right, not politically, but economically its becoming one of the industrial powerhouses of the EU.

The original "news" are from some Telegram channel from Mar 4.

Almost everywhere there is an absolutely identical text, without sources.

I couldn't find anything remotely similar in .kz

While Kazakhstan is not fully supporting Russia, turning away from it seems like an economic suicide.

How so?

60% of the Kazahk economy is from oil and gas.† It's not like it's exporting that stuff to Russia.

† https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazakhstan#/media/File:Kazakhs...

but 40% of import is. I live in KZ and in a recent talk my fellow Russian expats mentioned this topic. I checked what items in my rented apartment are made in Russia. Except clothes, shoes and computer devices and furniture, which is produced locally, everything in the kitchen is from Russia: tea, porriges, tools (like plastic funnel, which is even from Moscow!), even a can of salt is from there. Just 2-3 were not from RU.

For example, IKEA stores in Russia ordered furniture by their designs from local makers. This was imported in KZ. Now they're gone, and IKEA items are either brought from Turkey, or the Russian factories started making something roughly similar, but it's not branded/quality controlled.

Some imports (from China or even Turkey) went via Russian logistics as well, and only the last year started to be re-routed.

But also some "politics" would be interesting. Did Kazakhstan do something similar previously? Is this a new development?

Since Tokayev became a president, IMO relations between Russia and Kazakhstan are getting worse. Of course especially after invasion. But Kazakhstan and Russia are far from enemies, at least for the time being. They have deep economic ties. As I see it, Kazakhstan tries to build more independent economy but it's not really easy to do so, when the only real alternative is China which is completely foreign and many Kazakhs are afraid of Chinese invasion (not military, but economical, buying land and so on). And of course it's kind of hard to defend huge country with the population of 18 million. So military alliance with strong neighbour is kind of necessary in this situation and Russia provides one.

Kazakhstan has been steadily moving into China’s political orbit where it will be safe from any Russian retaliation.

Kazakhstan's economy is dominated by the oil and gas industry. If anything, it competes with Russia economically. As it develops alternative transportation networks, economic independence from Russia will benefit it, not harm it.

As far as I know, major (overwhelming?) part of Kazakhstan oil and gas is transported via Russian pipes. They were used as a tool to press on Kazakhstan in the past. Yes, alternative networks are being developed, but that takes a lot of time.

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