As Austrian media „Die Kronen Zeitung" is reporting, the former Kazakh Ambassador to Austria and the International Institutions Rakhat Aliyev - European crime units investigate against him on charges of double murder, torture, abduction and money-laundering - can travel around Europe in private learjets.

Two prominent activists lobbying against Kazakhstan's membership in the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) – due to be created next week – have been hauled in for interrogation by Kazakhstan's domestic intelligence service over an alleged plot by Russian nationalists to destabilize the country.

It is after 8pm and Kazakhstan's parliament in the futuristic capital of Astana is practically deserted. Yet Bakytzhan Sagintayev, first deputy prime minister, is still hard at work. A few minutes into an interview with the Financial Times, he is interrupted by a klaxon-like sound: an urgent query from the prime minister.

When 60-year-old Su Huiping, a Shanghai embroidery artist, put a nearly invisible silk thread through the tiny eye of a needle, a group of distinguished observers couldn't help but marvel.

On April 29, after months of anticipation, the presidents of Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Russia met in Minsk to put the finishing touches on the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), an ambitious plan to unite into a single economic entity. Observers from Washington to Moscow expected this meeting to be the last step before the official signing of the EEU treaty in May. But something went wrong.

Russian President Vladimir Putin convened an "informal" summit of his allies in the Collective Security Treaty Organization last week as Moscow faced continued international isolation over its role in the Ukraine crisis. But the event only highlighted the misgivings of Russia's foreign policy direction, even among its closest allies.