Ruslan Zhaksylykov appointed Minister of Defense of Kazakhstan

Ruslan Zhaksylykov was appointed Minister of Defense of Kazakhstan, informs RIA Novosti.

Murat Bektanov was relieved of his post by a presidential decree.

Zhaksylykov previously held the position of Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs – Commander-in-Chief of the National Guard.

Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev accepted the resignation of the government led by Askar Mamin on January 5.

January 6 Tokayev replaced head of the National Security Committee of Kazakhstan Karim Massimov, appointing Ermek Sagimbaev as the new chairman, who previously served as head of the state security service. On the same day Massimov was detained.

In early January, protests erupted in a number of Kazakh cities and continued for several days. During this time, more than a hundred protesters were killed, and the number of detainees approached the mark of six thousand people. The protests were triggered by a sharp rise in prices for liquefied gas, but subsequently the people of Kazakhstan began to put forward political demands – in particular, the departure of Nursultan Nazarbayev from politics.