MOSCOW, January 10. /TASS/. A total of 146 Russian nationals, as well as Hungarian and Austrian diplomats and their families have been airlifted to Moscow by a Russian military transport plane, the Russian defense ministry said on Monday.

"A military transport plane of the Russian aerospace forces has brought 146 Russian citizens from Almaty, Kazakhstan, to Moscow <…>. The Russian defense ministry’s plane also took several foreign diplomats and their families at the request of Hungary’s and Austria’s embassies," it said.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto wrote on his Facebook account earlier that the Russian foreign ministry had helped evacuate Hungarian nationals from riot-gripped Almaty. Six Hungarian citizens took the Russian defense ministry’s plane to leave Kazakhstan. They will be later taken to Hungary from Russia by a Hungarian military plane.

In all, according to the Russian defense ministry, 1,489 Russian nationals have been evacuated from Kazakhstan.

Protests erupted in several Kazakh cities on January 2, escalating into mass riots with government buildings being 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.