Kazakhstan's uprising was a long time coming, and it's an unwelcome distraction for Vladimir Putin

The government's unfulfilled pledges of a better economic future have turned Kazakhstan into a pressure cooker of discontent. The unrest is also bad news for key ally Russia, which is preoccupied with a high-stakes game of brinkmanship over Ukraine.

Only a few dozen people took to the streets in the city of Zhanaozen to protest, but within three days their anger was echoed by people across the vast resource-rich central Asian state, fed up with everything from unemployment and inflation to corruption.

The security forces had the upper hand to begin with, vastly outnumbering those who braved arrest and sub-zero temperatures to protest. But by January 4, spontaneous unrest had engulfed Almaty, the largest city in this authoritarian former Soviet state. The government's promises to roll back the price increase and offer other economic support were too little and too late.