Kazakhstan has flatly denied that Ukrainian attack drones are flying into Russia via its airspace. 

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on June 21 said that dozens of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) had crossed western Kazakhstan headed for Russian targets. She referred to Kazakhstan’s obligations to Russia under the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) defence pact. But Kazakh foreign ministry officials have this week issued denials, saying Astana is not aware of any such drone overflights into Russia.

Kazakhstan maintains a neutrality when it comes to the war in Ukraine, though it has pointedly refused to recognise Moscow’s claims to any territories taken by Russian forces in the more than three year-old conflict. That fact stirs discontent among uber-nationalists in Russia who remember Kazakhstan as part of the Russian colonial past and to this day say some northern parts of the country should be part of Russia.

Somewhat wild speculation broke out on Russian channels of the Telegram social network after the major Ukrainian “Operation Spiderweb” drone strikes on Russian bomber planes at their bases on June 1. Unverified allegations suggesting that Kazakhstan served as a transit route for the drones used in the covert attack conducted by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), in which the drones were released from hidden compartments in the back of trucks, spread.

Pro-Kremlin Telegram channels began alleging that the drones used were assembled in Chelyabinsk, a Russian region bordering Kazakhstan. The accounts claimed that drone components and explosives arrived via Kazakh territory, citing unnamed sources and providing no documentary evidence. One such post asserted that “all the spare parts and explosives arrived via fraternal Kazakhstan.”

On June 3, Aibek Smadiyarov, official spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan, told a press briefing: “I am not a military expert. Of course, I saw these messages in the morning. Anonymous channels on Telegram are spreading this. There is no official confirmation of these accusations, which is why I cannot confirm it. I will leave this for our experts as a theory to discuss.”

No evidence proving the theory has emerged.

Kazakhstan, meanwhile, appears to be increasingly finding wreckage from crashed drones in various locations near its border with Russia.

On June 8, Kazakhstan’s First Deputy Minister of Defence Sultan Kamaletdinov confirmed during a Senate session that UAVs that crashed in Kazakhstan’s West Kazakhstan region earlier this year were launched from a Russian test site. 

Kamaletdinov stated that “more than 90% of the UAVs discovered in the West Kazakhstan region were located within the boundaries of the 926th Main Flight Test Centre of the Russian Federation.”

Russia operates three military test sites in Kazakhstan, including facilities connected to the 929th State Flight Test Centre. These test sites are located in the West Kazakhstan and Atyrau regions and are associated with the V.P. Chkalov State Flight Test Centre (929 GLITS VVS), a key Russian institution for military aviation and weapons testing, as described by a bne IntelliNews piece in March 2024.

The Chkalov Centre’s headquarters are in Akhtubinsk in Russia’s Astrakhan region, but its network of testing ranges extends across both Russian and Kazakh territory, with testing zones ranging from 22 to 800 kilometres (14 to 497 miles) from Akhtubinsk.

Separately, the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), which handles most of Kazakhstan’s oil exports by piping flows to a shipping terminal at Novorossiysk on the Russian Black Sea coast, said on June 18 that it was preparing to file a claim against Ukraine over a drone strike that cost the company an estimated RUB2.7bn ($34mn) in damage.

The drone hit occurred in February at the Kropotkinskaya oil pumping station in Russia’s Krasnodar region. Repairs reportedly took several months.

Ukrainian authorities claimed responsibility for the attack, describing the facility as “critical” for fuelling Russian occupation forces and asserting that the strike had “significantly disrupted the aggressor’s fuel supply.”