[JumpCrisscross]

Fair enough. I do think taken together, and the observation that absent Moscow's military support Minsk and new Almaty could have gone quite differently, they would be worrying to someone in Putin's shoes.

Deploying the Russian army to Kazakhstan is much less risky than deploying it in Moscow. A small shift in the balance of power and the guns are aimed at you.

That said, we in the West have a long history of overcomplicating the Kremlin's thinking. Perhaps he is just going senile.