ИСТИНА

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia and Kazakhstan have overcome the difficult way of developing interstate relations in the new geopolitical conditions, and creation of a legal basis for bilateral relations. Russia and Kazakhstan are key actors of integration processes in the post-Soviet space. Over the years after the collapse of the USSR, Russia and Kazakhstan went through several stages of integration, which resulted in the launch of the Eurasian Economic Union in 2015. Cross-border cooperation occupies a special place in the relations between the two countries. Since 2003, Russia and Kazakhstan annually hold a forum of border regions. Cooperation is also carried out within the framework of cross-border cooperation programs. However, the level of development of cross-border cooperation, which can be considered as “small integration”, leaves much to be desired. The reasons for the current situation should be considered a high level of centralization of power (especially in Kazakhstan), an insufficient level of development of civil society, as well as an insufficiently developed regulatory framework that would determine the forms and limits of cooperation acceptable to both sides. Perhaps that is why the numerous interregional cooperation agreements have remained only framework agreements, and the Eurasian regions, created on the model of Euroregions, are nothing more than ideas. Another equally important challenge for cross-border cooperation on the border between Russia and Kazakhstan is the demographic processes, which in the post-Soviet period were extremely unfavorable. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to show how the demographic trends of recent decades affect cross-border cooperation between the regions of Russian and Kazakhstan.