here behind us. we ve not only seen people from various places around the world, and from european countries trying to get through that border crossing, not being allowed to do that, being rejected, but also people from kyrgyzstan, and normally for them, it s pretty easy to enter kaza kazakhstan, but right now it really seems as if the border is very much sealed, kristie. the border is sealed except for russian troops. and after tokayev invited those russian troops into his country to help quell the unrest, what s the situation on the ground? reporter: i think that it certainly plays a major role. and it certainly does not only consolidate mr. tokayev s dprip grip on power, but moves kazakhstan not only closer into russia s orbit, but further into the csto. it s an alliance that has been there for a long time, but hasn t been utilized very much over the past couple of years, decades. and now we can really see for the first time, foreign troops have been called in under that securit