Kazakh leader meets Putin in first post-election trip abroad

MOSCOW — Kazakhstan’s leader met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, a week after winning a new seven-year term by a landslide in a snap election.

Kazakhstan is a significant Russian ally, sharing a 7,600-kilometer (4,750-mile) border. But President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has kept his distance from Moscow amid the conflict in Ukraine, notably declining this summer to recognize the Kremlin’s declaration of separatist Ukraine regions as sovereign states.