““Given how carefully choreographed Mr Putin’s public appearances are, the question itself touched a nerve in Kazakhstan. The country’s single greatest uncertainty is what will happen after Mr Nazarbayev, who has ruled since the break-up of the Soviet Union, stands aside or dies. Mr Putin praised the Kazakh president’s intelligence before asserting that “the Kazakhs never had statehood” before 1991. He was convinced that Kazakhstan would remain in the EEU, he added, because its people recognised that it was “good for them to remain in the sphere of the so-called greater Russian world, which is a part of global civilisation”. The comment was taken as part threat, part insult in Kazakhstan which, like Ukraine, has regions with a majority ethnic Russian population, fuelling fears it might share Kiev’s fate.””
![“I think his [Reagan's] policy toward the Soviet Union was…” quote by David E. Hoffman](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/2ac/david-e-hoffman-43835_fear_i-think-his-reagan-s-policy-toward-the-s_20678.jpg)
