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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: President Japarov, colleagues, friends,

Interaction within the framework of the CIS is developing in a complicated geopolitical situation, as President Lukashenko has told us eloquently just now. At the same time, the CIS remains a reliable and clearly popular and effective cooperation format, which the member states are using to develop relations exclusively on the principles of partnership, mutual benefit and respect for each other’s interests. This sounds like commonplace diplomatic language, but it reflects our practical actions and the reality of our relations. This is how it really is.

Some countries, which are still registered as CIS members, are not working within this format. I would like to say the following. It began in Georgia after its former President made several attempts to resolve domestic problems by using military force and attacks against South Ossetia. This is what it began with, as well as with the consequences of that reckless operation.

Ukraine signed the founding documents of the CIS, but it has never joined the organisation on a full-scale basis. Ukraine did not ratify these documents. In fact, it avoided comprehensive cooperation from the very beginning.

As for Moldova, it is losing its identity, and its elite does not regard themselves as Moldovans. They say they are Romanians. It is their choice. This loss of the country’s identity is the choice of the current Moldovan leadership. But as I said, this is what they want, and nobody can stop them except the people of Moldova, provided there are people who regard themselves as Moldovans in that country.

It is a choice for each of us: do we want to preserve our own identity or not? This opportunity is given to us through working within the CIS. It strengthens our positions without holding us back in terms of cooperation with each other and respecting our national specifics.

It is not a coincidence that, despite the unprecedented sanctions pressure of the Western countries and the threats to impose so-called secondary sanctions against those continuing to work with Russia and Belarus in a bilateral format, our economic links and exchanges within the CIS are steadily expanding. This is in the interests of our nations, as is absolutely clear.

Moreover, you can see that in Russia, the basic and fundamental conditions for developing our relations are becoming stronger – I am talking primarily about the current state of the Russian economy. I hope it will remain this way and we are fighting for this, wishing, of course, for more, all in all. But in general, the situation is rather stable. This year, we will get very close to GDP growth of 3 percent, which is a good result for the Russian economy. Not to mention all the other parameters and indicators, including the unemployment rate that is currently around 3 percent, or almost non-existent. Yes, the statistics may differ region to region and across different categories of the population. Unfortunately, in the Caucasus, for example, the unemployment rate is slightly higher, especially among young people. But the overall result is – we all know this and are taking action – Russia has been able to achieve its economic and social development goals in their entirety. We did not forgo any plans. On the contrary, we are fulfilling the plans made in the previous years. All the national development goals are being accomplished.

One very important aspect that our colleagues mentioned today is that the structure of the Russian economy is changing. We have not seen such structural changes in a long time. I already said that in the growth structure, the oil and gas sector accounts for 3 percent and industrial production for 43 percent. This means that out of what we used to purchase in large amounts from abroad, many things (of course, not everything because it would be impossible to start producing everything in one go) are already produced in the Russian Federation. New engineering centres are being created to work on a broad range of products. One way or another, all the participants in the economic activity across the CIS can feel the effects of these changes. It is obvious. 

We have placed a premium on the markets of our commonwealth partners, as well as on joint work, and I want to emphasise this, on bilateral work. You are well aware of this. We are looking for and finding opportunities for cooperation on import substitution and the strengthening of technological sovereignty, which is very important.

President Tokayev also mentioned food security. In fact, what he said about Kazakhstan’s export capabilities implies improvement in our food security. Russia retains its potential. As you know, last year saw a historical record in terms of grain yield, 158 million tonnes. This year, it will also be quite high; it has already exceeded 130 million tonnes, and it will be about 134–135 million tonnes. This means we have a very big export potential. Russia will probably remain the global leader in wheat exports. Our grain exports will be approximately the same as last year, no less than 50–60 million tonnes. And, naturally, I know that our CIS friends and colleagues have their needs, and we will meet them all.

Last year, Russia’s trade with the CIS countries grew by 6 percent to $102 billion.

Overall, the economies of the commonwealth states show positive dynamics in most areas. Our common first-half GDP growth was 2.2 percent. I want to point out that, say, in the Eurozone, which has minimal growth of about 0.5 percent overall, most industrially developed economies in the European Union have shown negative results: minus 0.1 percent, minus 0.2 percent, minus 0.3 percent. In some Baltic countries, economies dropped by 3 percent. This is a recession. We are not gloating over this, and we are not applauding, we are simply stating a fact. Here, in the CIS, economic growth is 2.2 percent; industrial production grew by 2.7 percent, and cargo carriage volume has grown by 7 percent.

 In this regard, it is very important, and my colleagues have already mentioned it, to develop transport infrastructure. Yesterday, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and I spoke in detail about our plans, which include the development of the railway network and our road system. This has a serious importance, not only regionally, but internationally, and will definitely facilitate the development of the economy in general. Retail trade has increased by almost 2 percent.

We regard the creation of a stable financial infrastructure impervious to outside impacts, as well as a wider use of national currencies in mutual settlements as an important tool promoting the further build-up of trade operations and investment flows.

Of course, I have in view Russia’s economy, where the use of the ruble predominates, but the national currencies of other CIS states are also in use. We will assist this in every way; we will work in the right manner with all our partners – I am referring primarily to our financial and economic agencies and central banks.

Intensifying foreign policy coordination within the CIS remains relevant as well. Of course, it is necessary not only to compare notes regularly on vital global and regional issues but also to develop coordinated concrete approaches and jointly promote them at the UN and other multilateral venues.

We are well aware of, and, let’s face it, see – this concerns not only the CIS but all partners of Russia – the attempts to bring pressure to bear, if not frighten, intimidate, and order them around. The CIS leaders – and we understand this perfectly well – are people who are primarily guided by their national interests. I hope this will guide how we promote our relations in the future. On the contrary, we see that the more blatant the attempt to pressurise someone, the less success is achieved by those attempting it.

And, of course, it is important to work together with like-minded people from other regions of the world, with countries of the so-called world majority, the Global South, whose views are very close to ours.

In this context, additional opportunities are opened by the recent expansion of BRICS and the readiness of this association to work with all partners sharing its fundamental values and ideals. Therefore, Russia, as the association chair in 2024, will prioritise the establishment of relations between the CIS and BRICS countries. Russia will hold the CIS and BRICS chairmanship in 2024. This enables us, together with you, in consultations with you, to build up relations with all organisations, including BRICS.

Naturally, we welcome the draft joint statements On International Relations in a Multipolar World, On Protecting the Right of Peoples to Freedom of Religion, and On Cooperation in Digitalising State Administration, which have been prepared for approval by the CIS leaders today.

It also seems reasonable to intensify the joint counter-terrorist efforts of the CIS countries.

In this context, I believe it would be justified to support Tajikistan’s concerns about the threats coming from the territory of Afghanistan. The situation in this country remains complicated, with plenty of threats. I think President Rahmon will certainly offer more details as he knows the situation better. There are certain problems starting directly at the border.

First of all, it is necessary to maximise the effectiveness of our cooperation between the law enforcement and other agencies involved in countering the financing of terrorism, money laundering, organised crime, drug trafficking and corruption. These goals are stipulated in the agreement on establishing an international centre for assessing the risks of legitimising income obtained by criminal means, and of financing terrorism, as well as the International Crime Prevention Programme for 2024–2028. These documents have been submitted for our approval.

Of course, we support giving extra impetus to the cooperation between the CIS countries in humanitarian affairs. Clearly, there are opportunities for expanding contacts in fields like culture, education, sport and tourism.

Selecting a cultural capital of the CIS is a practice that has more than proved its worth. This year, the cultural capital is St Petersburg, to be followed by Samarkand in 2024. I certainly agree with President Mirziyoyev: this historical city with rich cultural and social offerings will attract a great number of tourists from our countries. Just recently, we visited an event in Samarkand. I had not been familiar with the city before but I was impressed with its development. It is indeed a great achievement for Uzbekistan. Of course, Samarkand, with its historical districts and landmarks, will be extremely interesting to the entire CIS.

Last year, we launched several important CIS initiatives focused on promoting sports. Now the CIS annually selects a sports capital and organises the CIS Games. As you know, the first games were hosted by Kazan in 2021. This year, the games took place in Minsk. Minsk also rightfully earned the status of CIS sports capital. President Lukashenko and I discussed it. The games turned out to be a large-scale and exciting competition. Next year, the games will take place in Gyumri, Armenia. I hope that, despite the dramatic events in the region (I will speak about this further), Armenia will be able to host this event.

The Year of the Russian Language is being held successfully in the CIS. We are grateful to our partners for supporting the Statement on Promoting the Russian Language as a Major Consolidating Element in the Post-Soviet Space and as the Language of International Communication, which we plan to adopt today. I remember very well that the idea was put forth by President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. We are grateful to our colleague for this idea. I fully agree that freely communicating in the Russian language is our common heritage. Therefore, we certainly support it.

Of course, we also support the Treaty on the Establishment of the International Russian Language Organisation, which will promote Russian throughout the world. I would like to remind you that we discussed that idea on December 28, 2021. We are grateful to the President of Kazakhstan for it. All of us are happy that this initiative has been implemented so quickly.

It is notable that the activities of this Russian language organisation will not be limited to the CIS but rather all countries that share its goals and principles will be welcome to join. We hope that this organisation will start working without delay. Incidentally, we plan to establish its headquarters in Sochi, unless other parties to this process have any objections or other proposals, which we are certainly ready to discuss.

Of course, it is important to continue our joint efforts to preserve the memory of our common history and to prevent its falsification. Young people must know the objective truth about the achievements of our nations during the Soviet era and also about the heroism of our forefathers, in particular, during the Great Patriotic War.

We should continue to take measures to provide support and social protection to our veterans.

I assume that we will jointly celebrate the upcoming 80th anniversary of victory in the Great Patriotic War. I would like to note that 2025 has been declared in the CIS the Year of the 80th Anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War – the Year of Peace and Unity in the Fight against Nazism.

I know that it was outrageous for all of us to see the horrible incident at the Canadian Parliament when a former Nazi and soldier of the SS Galicia Division received a standing ovation. It is simply disgusting. More than that, the speaker of the parliament directly said that the man had fought against Russians during World War II. Do they not know that Hitler and the Nazis fought against the Russians? They know this. It is impossible they did not know that, if he fought against Russians, he also fought against Canadians and, hypothetically, we can assume he also killed Canadians because Canada was a member of the anti-Hitler coalition.

It was completely disgusting to watch the head of the Ukrainian state, an ethnic Jew, applaud not just an ideological follower of Nazism but a man who personally exterminated the Jewish population of Ukraine. It is sickening. I hope that nothing like this will ever happen in our countries.

President Lukashenko is right: one must know history to prevent this. The speaker correctly said that the man had fought against the Russians during the war. But one must know who actually fought against the Russians during the war. The speaker called him a hero of Canada and a hero of Ukraine. Nonsense. Unfortunately, things like this happen. By the way, while we are talking about this incident, few people know about it in the European countries and the United States. It was briefly reported and hushed up. If this continues, we may see the revival of Nazism on a global scale. It is horrible.

And so, of course, we must do everything to prevent this from happening in our countries. Pursuant to the long-term CIS tradition, it is important to support, as I said, frontline fighters and home front workers, siege and Nazi concentration camp survivors – and pay tribute to other categories of citizens, with commemorative awards, etc. At the end of this month, the prime ministers will meet in Bishkek to discuss the design and issuance of a commemorative medal. This is part of our common efforts to preserve the memory of the victims of Nazism.

Friends, I would also like to briefly share Russia’s approaches to the current complicated situation in the world, including in the region we share.

International relations are going through irreversible changes, and all of us can see it. This can be said with certainty now: these are irreversible changes. This naturally has to do, first and foremost, with global economic trends, because they form the foundation followed by everything else. And the trend is that the so-called golden billion countries are gradually, for purely objective reasons, losing their leading positions despite the efforts to preserve them. Production volumes are growing in the Global South countries, in Asia.

I have already said this, so I can just sum up briefly that the global GDP volumes in the BRICS countries have already grown, especially after BRICS expanded, and have exceeded the G7 countries. Most importantly, the trend has been preserved. The trend of the economic growth and strength of Asian countries and the rest of the world has been preserved.

This is an objective process, it is here to stay, and it is followed by the establishment of a multi-polar system. This does not just have to do with the events in Ukraine. Yes, of course, they do speed up the pace of these changes, but the global trends are the result of economic development.

We are convinced that security and optimal conditions for the development of all countries can only be ensured based on the sovereign equality of states and a well-adjusted balance of interests of members of the international community. We feel that such approaches have the support of many states. This was confirmed by the final documents of the summits held recently by the SCO, BRICS and the Russia-Africa summit; the Russia – Latin America parliamentary conference followed the same logic.

At the same time, a small group of countries obviously does not want to lose the exclusive status of a hegemon and in order to achieve this, provokes crises in various regions of the world, actively igniting both old and new conflicts.

I have already mentioned Ukraine, and this is only one of many examples. In any case, the situation was prepared for many years until it reached an acute phase. I have already said this many times, so I do not want to spend time on this here and waste your time, but, nevertheless, I would like to remind you that the Ukrainian crisis began in 2014, when a state coup was staged and then a war and hostilities were unleased in southeast Ukraine. This is how it all began.

Our special military operation is an attempt to stop the war rather than start it. I will not go into detail now, but when we have our private conversations, I will be ready to share some relevant information on this issue with you.

In the same way they are persistently attempting to undermine Russia’s friendly relations with its allies in the broad sense of this word, as well as its partners. As we know, they are using all kinds of tools and threats, including support for extremist and nationalist movements in our countries. I am sure that most of those present here have experienced this.

Another fresh example of the West’s activity in strategically important regions that are located far from it and close to us is the Nagorno-Karabakh crisis, which President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and I discussed in detail yesterday.

As you know, over the past three years Russia undertook substantial efforts to put an end to the hostilities and prevent an escalation. The corresponding trilateral documents were drafted with our assistance.

President Aliyev can confirm that during this time, a great deal of hard work was done in a trilateral format by Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia to stabilise relations between Baku and Yerevan, and Russian peacekeepers conscientiously carried out their mission in Karabakh as part of the powers granted to them.

The current agenda includes drafting a peace treaty that would finally end this long-standing conflict, and Russia is certainly ready to render comprehensive assistance to our partners on this matter.

In particular, we have agreed to host talks in Moscow, if required, in any format, to begin with negotiations between Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers and experts. We will certainly make every effort to make sure that these talks end with a peace agreement which will be signed by these countries’ leaders.

I want to reiterate: the choice is up to the countries involved. We are ready to create the necessary environment for this work.

I must also mention the unprecedented escalation of a Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which my colleagues also spoke about earlier, with thousands of civilians on both sides killed and injured.

The large-scale tragedy which both the Israelis and the Palestinians are going through is a direct result of the failed policy of the United States in the Middle East. The Americans tried to monopolise the Middle East peace process with the support of their European satellites, but they were not concerned with the search for compromises that would be acceptable for both parties and never took into account the Palestinian people’s vital interests.

The one-sided line pursued by the Americans has for many years been leading the situation further into a blind alley. The Middle East Quartet of international mediators was excluded from the process: in fact, the United States blocked this format under false pretexts, a format that is unique and whose mandate, incidentally, was approved by a UN resolution. Basically, they tried to use economic incentives to resolve a deep-rooted political problem of establishing an independent Palestinian state. And all of this taken together, along with Israel’s settlement expansion, has gradually led to the current tragedy.

Incidentally, we hear about plans for a ground operation in Gaza, and we will definitely talk more about this in an informal setting. We understand, so to say in a semi-professional way, that using heavy equipment in residential areas is a complicated matter than can have serious consequences for both sides. Yet, carrying out these operations in residential areas without such equipment is even more complicated. The most important thing is that losses among civilians will be absolutely unacceptable; there are almost two million people living there. The most important thing is to stop the bloodshed. There is a great need for collective efforts to achieve a ceasefire and stabilise the situation on the ground.

I would like to emphasise that Russia is ready for coordination with all constructively minded partners. We believe that there are no alternative ways to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict other than through talks. Their goal should be the implementation of the UN two-state formula, which involves the creation of an independent Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem, coexisting in peace and security with Israel, which, of course (we also see this), was subjected to an attack unprecedented in its cruelty and has the right to self-defence, to ensure its peaceful existence. We need to get down to resolving the issue through peaceful means. I believe that there is no alternative in this situation, at this point.

In conclusion, I would like to stress once again that Russia sincerely appreciates historically strong, friendly, truly trust-based relations with its CIS partners.

For our part, next year, during Russia’s chairmanship of the Commonwealth, we will make every effort to deepen equal and mutually beneficial cooperation. I will talk in more detail about the specific priorities of our chairmanship in an expanded format meeting, but, of course, we will continue what has been done under Kyrgyzstan’s chairmanship. I want to thank the President of Kyrgyzstan for the work done throughout the year and for organising our meeting today.

We will definitely consider President Lukashenko’s proposals to make fuller use of various events focused on international cooperation as part of our CIS chairmanship. We will pay attention to this and make proposals as to the corresponding events.

As for the date, we propose October 8, 2024.

Thank you.