EXPLAINER: Kazakhstan seeks Russia-led security group’s help

MOSCOW (AP) — As Kazakhstan struggles to cope with an increasingly violent uprising this week, it has turned for help to a Russian-led security bloc, the Collective Security Treaty Organization. Known as the CSTO, it was created in the early 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Thousands of Russian troops have now been dispatched to Kazakhstan to help secure strategic facilities. To legitimize his plea for outside military help, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev went on television Wednesday to say the unrest was being perpetrated by “international terrorist groups,” though there is no evidence of any such outside involvement. The move has caused dismay among Kazakhs, many of whom are concerned this development will undermine their country’s sovereignty.