‘I appreciated his joke.’ Tokayev responds to Lukashenko’s proposal that Kazakhstan join Belarus and Russia’s Union State

Responding to a comment made by Alexander Lukashenko on Sunday about how “Kazakhstan and other countries” should join Russia and Belarus’ Union State, Kazakhstani President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said that Kazakhstan has “no need” to join the alliance.

“I appreciated his joke. I don’t think there’s any need for this, since there are other integration arrangements, primarily the Eurasian Economic Union,” Tokayev said on Monday. He added that Kazakhstan, as a member of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, does not need nuclear weapons.

On May 24, speaking at the Eurasian Economic Forum, Tokayev commented on the “phenomenon” of the Union State, noting that “even nuclear weapons are now shared between the two.”

On May 28, Russian propagandist Pavel Zarubin published Lukashenko’s response: “If anyone is worried — I don’t think Kassym-Jomart Tokayev is worried about this, but just in case — nobody is opposed to the idea of Kazakhstan and other countries having just as close ties as we do with Russia. It’s very simple. You just have to join Belarus and Russia’s union, and that’s it: nuclear weapons for everybody.”

The Kremlin, in turn, responded to Tokayev’s comments by noting that the Union State has a “significantly more advanced level of integration that the Eurasian Economic Union.” “It’s a situation unique in the world, and it should be taken into account,” said Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.