The Russian propaganda in Kazakhstan, especially propaganda of war in Ukraine, spreads beyond the Russian-speaking audience. Experts consider it an alarming sign.
According to observations of political analyst Shalkar Nurseit, the three main topics of the Russian propaganda have formed in the last five years. They are: myths about COVID and vaccination; myths and conspiracy about the war in Ukraine, like, disinformation about Zelensky being a drug addict; myths about the western states, issues of democracy, human rights, the so-called world government, masons, and so on.
Such myths could ‘fall on fertile ground’ as most of Kazakhstanis are vulnerable to fake news and disinformation. It is evidenced by the poll held by The Bureau for Express Monitoring of Public Opinion DEMOSCOPE at the end of 2022. It was found out that half of respondents had difficulty with identifying unreliable information.
How is the Kremlin propaganda manifested in the Kazakh language?
According to Medet Yesimkhanov, editor-in-chief of the Russian version of the Factcheck.kz project, who deconstructs propaganda, almost all narratives used to justify the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, can be regarded as the Russian propaganda. For example, the statement about the war with NATO, that Nazism thrives in Ukraine, about the ‘genocide’ in Donbas.
Demoscope studied the attitude to the conflict in March 2022. It turned out that the language of response affected the perception of war. “Marker ‘military operation’ was preferred by 39 per cent of Russian-speaking respondents and 27 per cent of Kazakh-speaking ones,” according to the press release of Demoscope.
It can be interpreted as the Kazakh-speaking media space also has narratives of the Russian propaganda. The well-known public news website Nege.kz can serve as a proof. It broadcasted the declaration by Russian president Putin in March 2022, who said that ‘Russian soldiers and officers act as real heroes’ in the war with Ukraine. The editorial office did not mention other details and information related to the war in the article.
Media expert Zholdas Orisbai pointed out that the website sputnik.kz still uses the phrase ‘special military operation’ instead of ‘war’ and explained the choice of the euphemism: “This media outlet belongs to the Kremlin. It uses the propaganda’s gradual strategy. This resource tries to change the perception of Kazakhstanis by repeating the narrative ‘special military operation’.
Keep in mind that Sputnik.kz uses the phrase ‘special military operation’ not only in materials in the Russian, but also in the Kazakh language.
Tengrinews.kz , which is popular in Kazakhstan, also follows the same pattern.
The pro-Kremlin media outlets try to discredit western states by countering ‘traditional’ values with ‘western’ ones, and use the rhetoric focused against LGBT. These narratives are visible in the Kazakh-speaking space. Thus, back in 2020, the socio-political resource 365info.kz published information in Kazakh that “gays exhibited LGBT flags on the ‘Mother Motherland’ monument in Kiev, while caravan.kz wrote that LGBTQ+ representatives break families apart.
Nege.kz published an article that ‘LGBT rises’ in Kazakhstan. The author of the article asked, “Should we prohibit actions that contrast with the traditions of our ancestors or yield to demands of the globalisation process and give free rein like in the West?”
Why is the Kremlin propaganda dangerous for Kazakhstan?
According to Zholdas Orisbai, Russia is looking to strengthen its influence in Kazakhstan via the economic and political instruments.
“Therefore when Kazakhstan authorities meet with American, European political figures, China’s leader, Russian authorities try to demonstrate their influence on Akorda (residence of the president of Kazakhstan – Editorial office),” the media expert said.
He cited Tina Kandelaki, the Russian TV host, who said that Kazakhstan “keeps on driving out the Russian language at the countrywide level slowly but surely.” She made the statement on January 16, 2024, and the president of Kazakhstan made a formal visit to Italy on January 18, 2024.
“It might be a coincidence,” Orisbai said. “But it is quite possible that it was a propaganda method, which the Kremlin used to express reluctance over Kazakhstan’s interaction with Western countries.”
Duman Smakov, editor-in-chief of the Kazakh-language version of Factcheck.kz, warned that the Kremlin propaganda could provoke mass public protests quickly, could give rise to separatist and extremist sentiments, threatening the stability of Kazakhstan. Similar methods were used in Ukraine and Moldova, and, according to him, the Russian propaganda should be seen as the key information threat.
“The Russian propaganda is looking to create bipolarity in the Kazakhstan society by pointing out the use of Russian language and feeding doubts over the decolonisation process. It could lead to the extension of the impact of propaganda and pro-Kremlin sentiments among the public,” Zholdas Orisbai said.
According to Shalkar Nurseit, the propaganda is looking to polarise the society, “I’d like to note that polarisation is an integral part of development of the current society. Nevertheless, propaganda will exacerbate this process, and will be a barrier to the socio-political stability of Kazakhstan.”
Another threat, according to Shalkar Nurseit, is the stigmatisation of the human rights issue, ideas of liberalism in Kazakhstan.
“In this case, the Russian propaganda also has its impact because many Kazakh-speaking people transmit Russian propagandist ideas in the Kazakh language. Many Kazakh-speaking people, who are bilinguals (can also speak Russian – Editorial office), become victims of this propaganda and contribute to the stigmatisation of liberalism and human rights,” said Nurseit.
According to the expert, the Kremlin propaganda can affect the self-determination of peoples of Kazakhstan in the long term.
“Recently, the strategic documents of the Kremlin define the Russian world as a civilisation, which implies use of the Russian language and culture as a political instrument in the former Soviet Union. It will concern our country directly and will have a negative influence on the strengthening of the self-actualisation of Kazakhstanis,” the political analyst said.
According to him, it will also mean that the Russian propaganda will continue to prevent the Kazakh language from becoming the state one, the transition of the Kazakh alphabet from Cyrillic to Latin alphabet.
“In other words, it would be difficult to create the single informational and ideological space on the basis of the state Kazakh language,” Nurseit said.
How to fight Kremlin propaganda?
According to Zholdas Orisbai, the Kremlin rhetoric could cover the Kazakh language in the short run. Duman Smakov warned that it would have as much impact on generations as the Soviet propaganda, and previously the Russian Empire propaganda.
Therefore, according to Duman Smakov, it is important to take real measures to ban the propaganda of war, which is formally prohibited by the Constitution, in combatting propaganda.
“Independent media should use prebunking, i.e. pre-emptively debunk Russia’s propaganda narratives. The quality of Kazakh-language information should be improved, while the number of the Kazakh-speaking audience should be increased. Not only light, humorous, but also politically literate content should be increased,” said Smakov.
Zholdas Orisbai focuses attention on the need to improve fact-checking skills of Kazakh-speaking journalists.
“There are very few resources that check facts in the market of Kazakhstan. If every editorial office could form independent fact-checking experts, the media market would have won,” Zholdas Orisbai said.
However, according to the expert, the space for fact-checking is shrinking for many journalists due to their non-proficiency in other languages but Russian.
According to Shalkar Nurseit, a comprehensive approach is needed to solve the problem.
“First, it is the liberalisation of the political system that will ensure political competition and free speech. It would be impossible to fight propaganda without them both in Kazakh and Russian-speaking media. Second, special emphasis should be placed on further training of journalists, compliance with journalistic ethics should be addressed. It is a vulnerable thing,” Nurseit said.
Also, according to him, media should have a sustainable financial model.
“Now many media outlets depend on the public information orders, which have a strong impact on the quality of their media materials,” the political analyst said. “Such media outlets serve as the propaganda voice of the authoritarian regime.”
Improvement of media literacy and development of critical thinking skills in the Kazakhstan audience are the components to work on.
This publication was funded by the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of IWPR and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.