Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev followed his Belarussian counterpart to Ukraine today as Moscow's old allies built bridges to Europe while Russia's financial crisis and diplomatic isolation grew.
Both visits were ostensibly made to kickstart stalled peace negotiations between Kiev and the two Russian-speaking regions of eastern Ukraine that rebelled against Kiev in April.
Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko hosted such talks in September and is hoping to do so again in Minsk in the coming days.
But Nazarbayev has no evident link to the eight-month conflict and remains a prominent member of a Russian-dominated economic union that includes Belarus and once had aspirations to enlist Ukraine.
A senior Ukrainian official told AFP that both leaders - criticized in the West for their intolerance of political dissent- were now trying to shake off the Kremlin and forge partnerships in Europe because Russian President Vladimir Putin "is weak".
Some political analysts in Russia agreed.
"This is an unambiguous signal to Putin," said Konstantin Kalachyov of Moscow's Political Expert Group think tank.
"Both Kazakhstan and Belarus fear that their union with Russia will be engulfed by (an economic) crisis."
'Honest broker'The veteran Kremlin leader is due on Tuesday to receive both Nazarbayev and Lukashenko for a summit of leaders from neighbouring nations that have formed a loose military bloc.
And Nazarbayev has balanced his Central Asian country's interests evenly between those of Russia and China- its southeastern neighbour and increasingly important trading partner.
"We have no conflicts of interest. I am what they call an honest broker."
He appeared to be referring to Putin when he told the Ukrainian leader: "They keep saying that Lukashenko is afraid of someone. But I am not afraid."
"Let's not say anything to anyone at all but do it in secret -- just as long as there is progress in this direction," Lukashenko was quoted as saying.
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