President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. File photoNUR-SULTAN, June 15 President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev was at his residence in Nur-Sultan during the January protests in the country and believed that he should not leave the country, although he was advised TV channel «Russia 24″ on Wednesday morning announced an interview with Tokayev, which will be shown on the air in the afternoon. .) was here, in the building of the presidential residence, did not go anywhere. Moreover, naturally, I spent the night here,» Tokayev said in an interview with the TV channel. According to him, from the very beginning of the riots he said that he was not going to leave the capital. «Some» comrades «offered me to sit either in a helicopter or on a plane and leave Kazakhstan. Naturally, I did not plan this in any way, and I thought that I should be here until the end,» the head of state explained. Mass protests in Kazakhstan began in the first days of 2022 — residents of the cities of Zhanaozen and Aktau in the west of the country opposed a two-fold increase in prices for liquefied gas. Later, the protests spread to other cities, including Alma-Ata, the old capital and the largest city of the republic: looting began there, militants attacked state institutions, took away weapons. In response, the authorities declared a state of emergency throughout the country until January 19 and launched a counter-terrorism operation. According to the country's Prosecutor General's Office, 230 people, including 19 security officials, died as a result of the riots.
