Who cares what Russia thinks, their economy is in shambles, they can not bully Ukraine and they certainly can not bully Kazakhstan. Author writes as if Russia is at par of west powers, which is not even near the truth. They are dying society.
they are literally doing that as we speak, while their "peacekeepers" are rolling around Kazakhstan prepping up a corrupt dictatoriship
Russian leadership will always find resources to gamble on geopolitics, even if that means tanking their economy ,like they did with Crimea