BERLIN (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 11th January, 2022) The Austrian Foreign Ministry confirmed to Sputnik that an employee of the Austrian Embassy in Moscow and their family were evacuated from Kazakhstan gripped by protests by the Russian army plane, which landed in Moscow late Monday.
"An employee of the Austrian Embassy in Moscow, accredited in Russia and Kazakhstan, visited Kazakhstan privately with their family during the winter holidays. They were caught in Almaty by the events of the last week and since the mid-week, the family has been in a hotel in Almaty. An opportunity for evacuation flights from Almaty to Moscow arose. The family was able, along with other passengers, to fly a Russian army plane to Moscow, where they landed on Monday, January 10, late in the evening," the foreign ministry said.
Earlier in the day, the Russian consulate in Almaty said that several Hungarian and Austrian diplomats with families were among the evacuees from Almaty that were taken to the Chkalovsky airport in the Moscow Region.
The Austrian defense attache in Russia, Thomas Ahammer, who was also evacuated from Kazakhstan with his family, called the Il-76 aircraft which took him to Moscow "wonderful." He told reporters that he was grateful to the Russian Defense Ministry that it provided citizens with transport and "that my family and I can return from here."
Mass protests engulfed the Central Asian country in the early days of 2022 and were prompted by twofold increase in gas prices. The protests became violent in some regions of Kazakhstan, and the authorities imposed a countrywide state of emergency until January 19 and launched a counter-terrorism operation. The country's interior ministry said that 17 Kazakh security officers were killed and over 1,300 were injured in the unrest.
