On January 7, 2022, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev made a shocking statement on Twitter: he said that in the preceding days, 20,000 foreign-trained terrorists had attacked the country. As a result, he claimed, it was necessary for him to order a “counter-terrorist operation to eliminate the national security threat and protect the lives and property of the citizens of Kazakhstan.” That same day, he announced in a televised address that he had ordered police and the army to “shoot to kill without warning.”