MOSCOW, January 7. /TASS/. Nine Il-76 aircraft of Russian Aerospace Forces with airborne troops and equipment landed at the Almaty airfield, the Russian Defense Ministry reported to journalists.

"Nine Russian military transport aircraft Il-76 with servicemen and equipment landed at the airfield of Almaty in the Republic of Kazakhstan," the ministry said.

On clarifying the situation, the units from the Russian peacekeeping contingent began to carry out their assigned tasks, the ministry added.

An air group of more than seventy Il-76 and five An-124 planes formed by the Defense Ministry transfers units of the Russian contingent of the CSTO peacekeeping forces to Kazakhstan around the clock.

Protests erupted in several Kazakh cities on January 2, later growing into mass riots and attacks on government offices. Thousands of casualties have been reported, including fatalities. The Kazakh president asked the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a military alliance of former Soviet republics, for help. First peacekeeping units have already started fulfilling their tasks in Kazakhstan. The government said order has generally been restored in all of the country’s regions by the morning of January 7, while the situation is the most difficult in Almaty.