The labor migrants are trying to return home after losing their jobs in the coronavirus pandemic. Tensions are rising, and a protest on the border has been violently broken up by Russian police.
Even with coronavirus serving as a belated impetus to push through long-stalled reforms, the five members of the Eurasian Economic Union show limited willingness to help each other.
Kazakhstan is still far from being the developed market economy its leaders pine for. And the current crisis risks shunting the country back toward a more traditional, state-directed stance.
A British court has unfrozen $99 million in property belonging to the former president’s daughter and grandson, only after they spoke more candidly about the sources and scope of their wealth than they have ever done at home.