Following Moscow's requests to dismiss the nation's Ukraine envoy, Kazakhstan's foreign ministry said Thursday that it had summoned Russia's ambassador to the Central Asian nation for a "serious talk."
Since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, ties between Russia and Kazakhstan have become tense as Astana attempts to strike a balance between its relations with the West and its ally Moscow.
In regards to Ukraine, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the president of Kazakhstan, has publicly differed with Vladimir Putin of Russia.
Thousands of Russians who fled to Kazakhstan after Moscow's military call-up were also given his assurances of safety.
“The ambassador was summoned to the foreign ministry for a serious talk. We discussed the statement of Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, which does not correspond with the spirit of equal strategic partnership,” Kazakhstan’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
“It was a fairly tough conversation,” the ministry added.
Earlier this week, Zakharova said Kazakhstan did not honour its promise to expel Ukraine’s ambassador to Kazakhstan Petro Vrublevsky, who in an interview made comments about “killing” Russians.
He later issued an apology.
Zakharova said in a statement on Tuesday that Kazakhstan “promised Vrublevsky would leave Kazakhstan irrevocably in the shortest possible time”.
She added that to Moscow’s “deepest regret”, Vrublevsky “reappeared in the capital of Kazakhstan” and “clearly not in order to just pack up and take his family home”.
The foreign ministry said in a statement Wednesday that Zakharova’s remarks were “discordant with the nature of allied relations between Kazakhstan and Russia”.
It added that Astana communicated the “unacceptability” of Vrublevsky’s statement to Ukraine and an agreement has been reached for his recall by Kyiv.