Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop the war in Ukraine to his face. With the Black Sea, a key route for Kazakhstan's crude exports, blocked by a series of drone attacks and causing massive economic damage, he is seen as having raised his voice in an unusual move to break the impasse.
Summing up reports by major outlets including Russia's TASS on the 27th, President Tokayev met President Putin in Omsk in southwestern Siberia on the 25th and formally proposed ending the war in Ukraine and returning to the "Istanbul Formula 2.0." The Istanbul Formula 2.0 is a plan to set up a negotiating table based on the peace talks held in Istanbul, Türkiye, in 2022, early in the war, and in July last year. It mainly calls for halting hostilities on the front line and reviving Türkiye's earlier negotiation proposals, such as prisoner exchange and building a framework for agreement. Tokayev said, "This conflict should have already been stopped," adding, "We must return to the Istanbul Formula 2.0."
Defining Russia's invasion of Ukraine as an inter-state conflict rather than a civil war, President Tokayev made the unusual remark that "we respect the Ukrainian people and their culture and language." He added that Kazakhstan had been asked by Europe and the United States to mediate between Russia and Ukraine, but said, "Russia is capable of resolving the issue on its own without a mediator."
Behind President Tokayev's unusually blunt remarks lies the shutdown of operations at the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) terminal at Novorossiysk port on the Black Sea. The pipeline is the key route that accounts for more than 80% of Kazakhstan's total crude exports. However, after a series of drone attacks in the area recently, the CPC completely halted intake of Kazakh crude starting on the 21st. With the route that handles eight-tenths of exports paralyzed, Kazakhstan's output of crude and gas condensate plunged 21% starting on the very next day, the 22nd. Production at Tengiz, Kazakhstan's largest oil field, also crashed 56% from the average.
Russia, however, immediately dismissed the proposal. Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that given Ukraine's current position, "a cease-fire is essentially impossible," adding, "We have key preconditions and must achieve our objectives." Russia is holding firm, setting as conditions for ending the war Ukraine's complete troop withdrawal and its renunciation of joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).