Kazakhstan protests resulted in the deaths of dozens of protestors and 12 police officers.

Authorities in Kazakhstan said Thursday that security forces killed dozens of protestors and 12 police officers in an outburst of violence that saw rioters attack government buildings and set them on fire.

In the disturbance, one police officer was found beheaded, posing a rising threat to authoritarian control in the former Soviet republic.

Despite the government’s harsh response, demonstrators took to the streets in Almaty, the country’s largest city, on Thursday, a day after bursting into the presidential mansion and the mayor’s office.

A Russian-led force of peacekeeping forces was on its way, and police were out in force, even in the capital of Nur-Sultan, which was reported to be tranquil.

Police fired heavily on a street near Republic Square, where demonstrators had congregated, according to video from the Russian news agency Tass, though they were not seen in the film. Late Thursday, Tass reported that protestors had been pushed out of the square, but that sporadic gunfire continued in the neighborhood.

Shots were fired as police surrounded a gathering of roughly 200 protestors in the city, according to Russia’s Sputnik news agency.

“Dozens of attackers were eliminated” during the unrest on Wednesday, according to police spokeswoman Saltanat Azirbek, who spoke to state news channel Khabar-24. According to the broadcaster, which cited local officials, 12 police officers were killed and 353 were injured. 2,000 people were detained, according to the Interior Ministry.

Thousands of people have flocked to the streets in recent days, some with clubs and shields, in the country’s worst protests since it gained independence from the Soviet Union three decades ago.

The protests started over a near-doubling of rates for a particular type of motor gasoline, but they seemed to represent broader anger in the country, which has been ruled by the same party since independence.

On Thursday, the government announced a 180-day price restriction on vehicle gasoline and a moratorium on utility rate increases as a concession. It was unclear how the changes would affect the situation.

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has wavered between trying to appease the demonstrators by accepting his government’s resignation and threatening harsh measures to stop the turmoil, which he blamed on “terrorist bands.”

Due to severe internet and telephone service outages, news of what was going on inside Kazakhstan was difficult, if not impossible, to get out. Almaty and another city’s airports were shut down.

Concerns that a bigger crackdown could be on the way grew after Tokayev requested assistance from a Russian-led military alliance.

The former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan are members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization. The operation is Kazakhstan’s first military action, indicating that the country’s neighbors, particularly Russia, are worried about the unrest spreading.

Russia and Kazakhstan have a 4,700-mile (7,600-kilometer) border, part of which runs through wide steppes. Kazakhstan is home to Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome space complex.

Stanislav Zas, the CSTO’s general secretary, told Russia’s RIA-Novosti news agency that the total number of peacekeepers to be sent will be around 2,500.

Suggestions that the troops would serve as occupiers rather than peacekeepers were dismissed as “total foolishness.” “Our states’ honest goal is to provide real assistance to Kazakhstan in its tough condition,” he said.

The US, however, has “issues regarding the substance of this request and whether it was a legal invitation or not,” according to White House press secretary Jen Pasaki.

“Of course, the rest of the world will be watching for any violations of human rights or measures that could lead to the takeover of Kazakh institutions,” she said.

Stephane Dujarric, a spokesman for the United Nations, urged security forces both inside and outside the country to “exercise caution and defend people’s rights.”

Tokayev has declared a state of emergency across the country and prohibited religious services. This is a setback for Kazakhstan’s Orthodox Christian community, which celebrates Christmas on Friday.