He absolutely was punching down. He used his high status to mock a low-status (in the West) ethnicity, and shamelessly used selective editing to make everyone other than himself look like a bigot and an asshole. When rightly criticized for this, he acted like he was the victim.

It was an awful display which has not aged well and will look even worse over time.

Rich dude makes fun of a nation for being poor and when they take issue he plays antisemitism card.

Yeah, but I see his point about getting away with this type of humor only because most viewers hardly know Kazachstan actually exists. I might be upset if I were a Kazakh, or I might not be - but I probably would find I hilarious.