A meeting of the CIS Council of Heads of State hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin ended in Moscow on October 8 with signing of a package of documents, including an appeal of the CIS Heads of State to the CIS peoples and the international community on the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945.
The summit was attended by President of Russia Vladimir Putin, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, President of Kyrgyzstan Sadyr Japarov, President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon, President of Turkmenistan Serdar Berdimuhamedov, President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Secretary General of the CIS Sergei Lebedev. The talks continued in the extended format with the CIS member states’ delegations.
The Russian president’s official website says the list of signed documents includes, among others, the decisions on the CIS Inter-parliamentary Assembly’s activities to strengthen integration cooperation; on the program of the CIS member states’ cooperation in deradicalization for 2025–2027; on declaring 2027 the Year of Legal Education in the CIS; on declaring Lachin, Republic of Azerbaijan, the cultural capital of the CIS in 2025, the city of Meghri, Republic of Armenia, in 2026, and the city of Molodechno, Republic of Belarus, in 2027; on the honorary title of the 1941–1945 City of Labor Glory of the Commonwealth of Independent States.
In a closing statement, Russian President Putin, whose country holds the rotating CIS presidency, announced that Tajikistan will assume the rotating CIS chairmanship next year.
The CIS, a regional intergovernmental organization, was formed following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. As such, it includes many former Soviet states: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Turkmenistan is an associate member.
The Diplomat notes that it should be noted that Moldova is in the process of leaving the CIS. The country’s president since 2020, Maia Sandu, hasn’t ever attended a CIS heads of state meeting. After drifting away from the organization for several years, the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine signaled a break. In March 2022, Moldova applied to join the EU and as of late 2023 the country’s leaders said it would fully exit the CIS by the end of 2024. Armenia, too, appears to be on the outs, though not as decisively as Moldova, according to The Diplomat.
Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan yesterday attended the meeting in Moscow (he skipped last year’s meeting in Bishkek), and Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan attended the CIS foreign ministers’ meeting on October 7. But Armenia declined to sign on to two statements issued after the CIS foreign ministers’ meeting.
