Abstract
Economic cooperation between Russia and Kazakhstan has been undergoing significant changes in recent years under the influence of external economic constraints and the transformation of regional economic ties. The aim of this article is to assess how Russia–Kazakhstan economic cooperation has evolved under sanctions by examining changes in bilateral trade, organizational embeddedness, and relative structural position between 2018 and 2025. The analysis uses Kazakhstan as a focused empirical setting and traces developments from 2018 to 2025, with the earlier years serving as a pre-shock benchmark. The results indicate that bilateral trade rose sharply after 2022, then remained elevated without further expansion. The results showed that a structural asymmetry of trade flows was revealed: Kazakhstan’s exports to Russia decreased from 9.55–9.56 billion US dollars in 2024 to 8.14 billion US dollars in 2025, while imports from Russia increased from 18.24 billion US dollars to 19.26 billion US dollars. Russian-linked firms also retained the largest foreign business presence in Kazakhstan. At the same time, the growing weight of China altered Russia’s relative standing rather than removing its importance. The study shows that cooperation under sanctions is better understood as differentiated restructuring than as simple expansion and contraction. Thus, the economic cooperation between Russia and Kazakhstan does not show signs of either steady expansion or consistent reduction, but is developing in the form of structural adjustment at a high level of interaction.