In early 2016, it was announced that 1.7 million hectares of agricultural land would be sold at auction. This sparked rare protests around the country which called for Nazarbayev to stop the momentum on land sales and solve the nation's problems as well. In response to the fears of the lands being sold to foreigners especially Chinese, Nazarbayev fired back at claims, calling them "groundless" and warned that any provocateur would be punished. On 1 May 2016, at the Kazakhstan People's Unity Day, Nazarbayev warned that without unity and stability, a crisis similarly in Ukraine would happen. In June 2016, armed attacks in Aktobe took place resulting in deaths of 25 people. Nazarbayev called the incident as terrorist attacks which were orchestrated from abroad to destabilize the country similarly in a colour revolution to which he accused of being infiltrated by the ISIS militants.