ASTANA -- A spokesman for the Kazakh Foreign Ministry said on October 2 that the ministry has created a list of persons who publicly "express negative opinions" about Kazakhstan and therefore are banned from entering the country.
Aibek Smadiyarov added that the list will not be made public and did not say when it was first created.
"I also cannot say how many persons are currently on the list. The border will be closed for such people and they will not be allowed to enter the country," Smadiyarov said.
Smadiyarov's statement came at a briefing at which journalists asked him about Kazakhstan's official reaction to frequent statements by officials, politicians, bloggers, and journalists in Russia, calling for war against Kazakhstan.
Kazakhstan is a close economic and military ally of Moscow that shares a 7,500-kilometer border with Russia, but Astana has not recognized Ukrainian regions occupied by Moscow as part of Russia.
Last week, while visiting Germany, Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev said at a press conference that his country does not fear any territorial claims from Moscow.
Still, since the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, another former Soviet republic, a stream of comments seen as anti-Kazakh have appeared, even from some lawmakers.
Last year, in the wake of the invasion, Moscow municipal lawmaker Sergei Sevostyanov publicly said that Kazakhstan "must be de-Nazified and demilitarized like Ukraine."
Shortly after that, pro-Kremlin political analyst Dmitry Drobnitsky said on television that "Kazakhstan is next after Ukraine," adding that "like in Ukraine, the Nazi processes may develop there as well."
In August 2022, nationalist, pro-imperial post calling Kazakhstan and Georgia "artificial" creations briefly appeared on the VKontakte (VK) social network account of former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. The post was removed after 10 minutes and officially attributed to hackers.
Kazakh Deputy Foreign Minister Roman Vasilenko and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in separate statements last year that the comments in question about Kazakhstan by Russian politicians, journalists, and bloggers did not reflect Russia's official stance.
Kazakh officials have already taken action against some of those who have commented, such as Russian propagandist Tigran Keosayan, who was barred from entering Kazakhstan for threatening the country in a YouTube statement for Astana's decision to cancel a Victory Day parade -- a patriotic event marking the Soviet Union's role in defeating Nazi Germany in World War II -- in May.
However, in May 2023, Russian lawmaker Konstantin Zatulin was allowed to visit Kazakhstan even though he publicly stated that Kazakhstan "will have the same fate as Ukraine."