Foreign meddling behind Kazakhstan unrest, Putin claims

Russian president says Moscow-led military bloc will take steps to ensure any future interference in region fails

Vladimir Putin has claimed the unrest in Kazakhstan last week that killed at least 164 people was the result of foreign meddling, and said a Russian-led military bloc should take steps to ensure future attempts to interfere in the region failed.

The events in Kazakhstan are not the first and far from the last attempt to interfere in the internal affairs of our states from the outside," said the Russian president, who was speaking at a video conference of leaders of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), a military alliance that deployed around 2,500 troops to Kazakhstan this week at the request of Kazakhstan's president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.