MOSCOW, January 17. /TASS/. Il-76 military transport planes with Russian peacekeepers began arriving in the Ulyanovsk Region in the Volga area after accomplishing their mission in Kazakhstan, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Monday.
"Russian peacekeepers from the CSTO [Collective Security Treaty Organization] collective peacekeeping forces have begun arriving aboard military transport planes of Russia’s Aerospace Force at the Vostochny airfield in the Ulyanovsk Region from Kazakhstan," the ministry said in a statement.
After all the planes touch down at the aerodrome’s airfield, a welcome back ceremony will be held for Russian paratroopers. After the ceremony’s completion, the personnel of the Ulyanovsk paratroop unit will begin unloading equipment and will subsequently depart for their permanent base, the ministry specified.
Also on January 17, military transport planes delivered Russian peacekeepers to the Chkalovsky airfield near Moscow.
Russia is set to return all of its peacekeepers from Kazakhstan to their permanent bases by January 19.
In compliance with a decision by the CSTO Collective Security Council made on January 6, 2022, the organization’s collective peacekeeping forces were sent to Kazakhstan for a limited period to stabilize and normalize the situation in the Central Asian republic. The peacekeeping contingent comprised units of the armed forces of Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
The Russian peacekeepers in Kazakhstan were assigned the task of protecting key strategic facilities in Almaty. On January 13, the CSTO began the gradual withdrawal of its collective peacekeeping forces from Kazakhstan that will last several days.
Protests erupted in several Kazakh cities on January 2, escalating into mass riots with government buildings getting ransacked in several cities a few days later. The ensuing violence left thousands of people injured, with fatalities also being reported. Subsequently, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev turned to the Collective Security Treaty Organization requesting assistance from the Russia-led bloc. As a result, peacekeepers were deployed to Kazakhstan.
Law and order, Kazakh authorities affirm, was restored to all of the country’s regions.