VIENNA, January 10./TASS/. The Russian Foreign Ministry has helped Hungary to evacuate its nationals from Almaty, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto wrote on his Facebook page on Monday.
"The Russian Foreign Ministry assisted in the evacuation of Hungarian nationals who found themselves in Almaty," the minister blogged.
He said that a plane of the Russian Defense Ministry with six Hungarian nationals and their families on board took off from Almaty on Monday afternoon. After arriving in Russia, they will be flown to Hungary on board a Hungarian military plane.
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 scores of people injured, with fatalities also being reported. Subsequently, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev turned to the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) requesting assistance from the Russia-led bloc. As a result, peacekeepers have already been deployed to Kazakhstan. Law and order, Kazakh authorities affirm, was restored to all of the country’s regions by the morning of January 7.