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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Colleagues,

I am delighted to welcome all of you to Moscow for a regular meeting of the CIS Heads of State Council, which Russia is hosting as the current chair of the Commonwealth.

First, I would like to emphasise that cooperation within the CIS is one of the Russian Federation's top foreign policy priorities. The member states of the Commonwealth are our closest neighbours, friends, and strategic partners, and we are naturally committed to strengthening our cooperation across the board.

This is precisely what the concept of Russia's 2024 chairmanship and the relevant large-scale activity plan aim to achieve. We are grateful to all our colleagues present here for their support and active engagement in their implementation.

We have a packed agenda today. We will certainly pay considerable attention to economic matters and the prospects of the further development of trade and investment cooperation within the CIS.

I am confident that we have abundant possibilities for launching new major and mutually beneficial projects in industry, agriculture, finance and infrastructure.

We will also exchange views on a broad range of other current issues in the CIS, from ensuring our common security to cultural and humanitarian cooperation.

We will discuss concrete measures to expand our partnership in all these spheres.

Last but not least, we will talk about other ways to enhance the efficiency of the Commonwealth and its structures. We will also take a number of organisational decisions.

I hope we will work fruitfully and engage in a traditionally open and trust-based discussion on the current development aspects in the CIS regions and the world as a whole. We will certainly talk about this as well.

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The CIS macroeconomic numbers have noticeably improved, and mutual trade and investment exchanges within the Commonwealth have expanded.

In the first half of the year, the aggregate GDP grew by 4.7 percent, investment in fixed assets rose by 11.2 percent, industrial output was up by 4.3 percent, cargo transport volume increased by 4.9 percent, and retail trade climbed by 8.6 percent. Good numbers, overall.

Through our collaborative efforts, we have built a robust financial infrastructure that is immune to external influences. The use of national currencies in mutual payments has expanded, and their share in commercial transactions within the CIS has exceeded 85 percent and continues to grow.

In addition, import substitution processes are moving fast thus strengthening our country’s technological sovereignty which is critically important considering the challenging global economic and political environment and the unprecedented pressure, particularly in the economy, coming from a number of countries.

Combatting terrorism and extremism, organised crime, drug trafficking, and corruption remains a priority for the CIS collaborative efforts. This work is backed by the well-established operational interaction among our security and law enforcement agencies. In August-September, Uzbekistan successfully hosted the CIS East-Antiterror-2024 exercises.

President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s suggestion to draft a CIS deradicalisation programme came as a timely initiative. I believe we will adopt the decision to approve this programme today.

Humanitarian ties within the CIS continue to make strides. Partnerships in science, education, culture, and tourism are deepening, with Russia’s chairmanship strongly promoting these efforts. In September, Ufa hosted a large-scale forum that brought together creative and scientific research professionals from the CIS countries.

The CIS Interparliamentary Assembly plays a significant role in promoting cooperation, as can be seen from its most recent productive meeting held in St Petersburg on July 12.

Every year, we choose CIS’s cultural capital that becomes the centre of impressive creative and cultural events which attract vivid interest among the people living in all our countries. Currently Samarkand is the cultural capital and next year, in accordance with the draft resolution submitted for our approval, it will be Lachin of Azerbaijan, in 2026 – Meghri of Armenia, and in 2027 – Molodechno of Belarus.

Considerable efforts are being made to expand sports exchanges which is vital in the context of sports being politicised. We would like to extend our gratitude to our CIS colleagues for sending their national teams to the BRICS Games held in Russia, the Children of Asia tournament, the Silk Road rally, and the multi-sports Games of the Future.

Let me remind you that this year has been declared the Year of the Volunteer Movement in the CIS, and the Russian chairmanship has tried to establish an interaction system in this area.

A special international task force has been established, and a number of youth and volunteer events have been held. The CIS countries gained access to the Russian online platform dobro.org which enables volunteers around the world to exchange experiences and pool efforts for joint projects.

We could support the proposal to create an international volunteer association and non-profit organisations within the CIS, hold CIS volunteer forums annually, and introduce separate grants for the most significant volunteer initiatives through the CIS Humanitarian Cooperation Fund

All our countries understand how important it is to preserve common history and prevent its falsification. Young people should certainly know what our peoples achieved during the long period when we lived as a single state, and about heroic deeds of our fathers, especially during the Great Patriotic War.

In 2025, we will celebrate the 80^th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War together. In the Commonwealth countries, this will be the Year of Peace and Unity in the Fight Against Nazism. In this regard, at Russia’s initiative, a draft appeal by the Heads of State on the victory anniversary has been submitted for your consideration.

We have come up with one more specific proposal which is to establish a City of Labour Glory honorary title in the CIS, and bestow it on the CIS cities which made a particularly large contribution to victory in the Great Patriotic War by ensuring the uninterrupted supply of military and civilian products. Without a doubt, this title will serve as a sign of recognition and respect for the collective effort of our peoples and honour every home front worker who helped defeat the enemy.

We keep saying, and the President of Tajikistan reiterated this last night, that victory in the Great Patriotic War is a shared legacy of all the peoples of the Soviet Union.

Furthermore, to preserve and to protect war memorials, monuments, and places of remembrance honouring the heroism of our soldiers, we propose creating a common roster of the Great Patriotic War memorial sites. One way to do so would be to establish such a roster at the Russian online platform, Place of Memory, which was created in 2016.

Additionally, as you may recall, a year ago in Bishkek, we signed a treaty establishing an International Organisation for the Russian Language. I would like to once again thank the President of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, for putting forward this, what I believe is an important and valuable initiative, since Russian is the language of interethnic communication in the CIS. Russia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan have ratified this treaty. I hope the other member states will complete their respective internal procedures shortly, and the treaty will come into force.

Of course, close foreign policy coordination among the Commonwealth countries is critical. It is supported by regular meetings of foreign ministers and inter-ministerial consultations, which help align agendas on pressing issues and regional matters and to develop coordinated strategies to be further promoted at the UN and other multilateral platforms.

As you are aware, Russia holds the chairmanship of BRICS this year. This organisation is gaining momentum and many countries now find it quite attractive. As you may be aware, we expanded BRICS membership last year to include new members and the countries that are interested in joining this respectable international forum. We will be pleased to see all leaders in attendance here at the BRICS Outreach/BRICS Plus meeting in Kazan on October 23–24.

We believe that fostering close cooperation among all CIS member states with BRICS aligns with the interest of strengthening our Commonwealth’s position in the international arena.

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