Billionaires in Kazakhstan, including family members of former President Nursultan Nazarbayev, are losing billions of dollars as stocks plunge amid unrest across the country, Forbes reports.
According to the publication, a total of four Kazakh billionaires, including Nazarbayev’s daughter and son-in-law, “poorer” by three billion dollars compared to January 4 due to the situation in the country.
Earlier it was reported about the fall of securities of banks Kaspi.kz and Halyk bank.
Forbes notes that the largest shareholder and chairman of the board of directors of Kaspi.kz, billionaire Vyacheslav Kim, has lost $1.4 billion over the past few days, the fortune of the chairman of the board of the bank, Mikhail Lomtadze, has also decreased by $1.4 billion. Nazarbayev’s daughter Dinara Kulibayeva and her husband Timur Kulibayev, according to the newspaper, lost about $200 million amid the riots.
Mass protests in Kazakhstan began in the first days of 2022 – residents of the cities of Zhanaozen and Aktau in the west of the country opposed the doubling of prices for liquefied gas. Later, the protests spread to other cities, including Alma-Ata, the old capital and the largest city of the republic: looting began there, militants attacked state institutions, took away weapons. In response, the authorities declared a state of emergency throughout the country until January 19 and launched a counter-terrorism operation. According to the UN, during the protests in Kazakhstan, about 1,000 people were injured. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the republic, 18 security officials were killed.
On the morning of January 5, President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Zhomart Tokayev dismissed the government and headed the Security Council. At the first meeting of the Security Council under his leadership, Tokayev described the situation in Kazakhstan as undermining the integrity of the state and said that he had asked for help from the CSTO “in overcoming the terrorist threat.” The CSTO Collective Security Council decided to send collective peacekeeping forces to Kazakhstan to normalize the situation in the country. On January 7, Tokayev announced that the terrorists, including those who had arrived from abroad, continued to resist, and promised to destroy those who did not lay down their arms. In addition, the president noted that all the demands of citizens, expressed in peaceful forms, were heard.
