Kazakhstan, a post-Soviet country that began transitioning its research system from the Soviet model to a Western one, instituted an EU-like, meritocracy-based rewards system for publishing between 2009 and 2012. This resulted in a sharp rise in the number of publications between 2012 and 2020. To complement existing studies, Scopus and Web of Science were sourced (16 February- 1 March 2024) to assess the scientific productivity of affiliations in Kazakhstan, noting that growth rate slowed to 6.1% in 2021, 4% in 2022, and 6.8% in 2023 (relative to an average annual growth rate of 35.3% in 2013-2020). In 2023, 20.4% of those publications were in MDPI journals. Separately, the Scopus-indexed retractions associated with Kazakhstani affiliations were assessed for 2013-2023. The vast majority (26/36) of retractions were related to fake peer review, with 14 in Elsevier's "Thinking Skills and Creativity," and the highest volume was in the 2016-2019 period. Of note, none of the 36 Scopus-indexed retracted papers had an associated institutional email. The emphasis on bibliometric indicators has led to an increase in manipulations and unethical actions by individual authors. These actions were driven by the desire to achieve personal and institutional goals, as well as imperfections in regulatory documents and delayed or hesitant actions of authorizing bodies. The findings of this study offer a unique contemporary perspective of scientific productivity in Kazakhstan while shedding light--through the prism of retractions, paper mills, and "predatory" publishing--on the ethics of the publication process.