The Ukrainian Prosecutor-General's Office said on June 25 that it had started the extradition process for two Kazakh nationals suspected of the attempted murder of Kazakh opposition activist and journalist Aidos Sadyqov in Kyiv.
Sadyqov, an outspoken critic of Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev and his government, was shot on June 18 while he was in his car in the Ukrainian capital and is currently in intensive care.
His wife, Natalya Sadyqova, who is also a journalist, was in the vehicle during the attack but was unharmed.
Just one day after the attack, Ukrainian police said investigators established that Sadyqov had been shot by two Kazakh suspects -- Altai Zhaqanbaev, born in 1988, and Meiram Qarataev, born in 1991 -- who were added to an international wanted list.
On June 22, Kazakhstan's Prosecutor-General's Office said the Central Asian nation's police had detained Zhaqanbaev and that they were trying to establish the whereabouts of Qarataev.
Natalya Sadyqova has said that Qarataev worked as a police officer in the northern Qostanai region. The Kazakh Interior Ministry, however, claimed that Qarataev had been sacked from the police force in 2019.
On June 26, Kazakh Deputy Interior Minister Marat Qozhaev told RFE/RL that if Ukraine requests extradition of the two suspects from Kazakhstan, "everything will proceed in accordance with the law."
He did not elaborate.
Qozhaev declined to answer RFE/RL's question about how and under what circumstances Zhaqanbaev was detained.
When RFE/RL asked Qozhaev if media reports saying that Zhaqanbaev used to work in the structures of the Committee for National Security were true, Qozhaev answered: "I do not have such information."
The Sadyqovs, along with their children, moved to Kyiv in 2014 after Kazakh authorities launched a case against Sadyqova, who worked as a journalist for the independent Respublika newspaper at the time. She was accused of slander.
Natalya Sadyqova said the attempted assassination against her husband appeared to be a "professional" operation.
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Kazakh Authorities Arrest Suspect In Connection With Journalist's Shooting In Kyiv
On June 19, Sadyqova told RFE/RL that, hours before the attack, she and her husband had issued a new video titled Toqaev Is Putin's Puppet on their YouTube channel.
The video criticizes Toqaev's "pro-Russian politics" and looks at the activities of Russian oligarchs and agents of influence in Kazakhstan, some of whom obtained Kazakh citizenship after Russia launched its ongoing invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
She added that Toqaev would have stood to gain from her husband's killing but did not present any evidence that connected the president in any way to the shooting.
Toqaev's spokesman, Berik Uali, said on June 21 that the Kazakh president "had ordered law enforcement entities to find the two suspects' whereabouts and undertake corresponding measures."
"Kazakhstan's side is ready to cooperate with Ukraine's law enforcement structures, including via Interpol," Uali said.
Sadyqov used to lead a branch of the opposition Azat Social Democratic Party in his native Aqtobe region in Kazakhstan's northwest until 2010. He later headed a group that was a major force for establishing a union to defend the rights of Kazakh workers at the Chinese-owned CNPC-Aktobemunaygaz oil company.