This Frankly Annoys Putin

On the results of the CIS summit in Bishkek.

Not only officials but also journalists from many countries were coming to the meetings. Everyone wanted to understand how the "civilised divorce" of the former Soviet republics would take place.

Well, now we know how! There is nothing civilised about this divorce. Any attempt to choose its own path of development is severely punished by the Kremlin. War, occupation and attempted annexation of territory, ethnic cleansing, destabilisation, economic and energy blackmail - and I have not listed it all yet! Moreover, this policy of demonstrative punishment is not hidden by Russian officials; they believe that Russia has the right to use force on someone else's territory - in Ukraine, in Georgia or Moldova, Vitaly Portnikov writes for Radio Svaboda.

That is why CIS summits are now interesting only to their participants. I used to try to attend every final press conference, to learn how the leaders of the former Soviet republics see the world. Now I am only interested in who is boycotting the next meeting. The head of the Armenian government Nikol Pashinyan did not arrive in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek.

And this step is symbolic against the background of frank disappointment with relations with Russia. Thus, there are more and more empty chairs at the negotiating table. And this frankly irritates Russia's leader Vladimir Putin, who recalled Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova at the final press conference. And even expressed concern that the citizens of Moldova are losing their identity, that is, abandoning the identity that was imposed on the inhabitants of this country by the Soviet regime.

One can see how Putin understands identity from the documents agreed at this meeting. The leaders of the CIS countries have long been unable to agree on any of the truly fundamental important issues. However, to make decisions that will please the Russian president in terms of Soviet nostalgia - there you are! So they agreed on creating an international organisation to promote Russian and agreed to support Russian as a language of inter-ethnic communication

The initiator of creating this international organisation, by the way, was not Putin, but the president of Kazakhstan Kasym-Jomart Tokayev, who during his visits to the West promises to do everything to comply with the sanctions restrictions against Russia. But he "exchanges" these promises for support of the Russian language.

Scattering Away From Moscow

In fact, even among those leaders who still meet Putin at CIS summits, there are fewer and fewer of those who are truly Russia-centred. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev is much more focused on contacts with neighbouring Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Azerbaijan and Turkey have become real strategic partners in recent years. Well, when it comes to mediating the conflict with Armenia, Aliyev also agrees to alternative platforms in the West.

Central Asian leaders are increasingly focusing on co-operation with China. Chinese President Xi Jianping made his first visit to Kazakhstan after the pandemic, and President Kasym-Jomart Tokayev celebrated his jubilee in China in the company of the Chinese President. And it was obvious at the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Samarkand that it was the head of China, not the president of Russia, who was the main guest there.

Therefore, the only "sincere" ally of Putin is Aliaksandr Lukashenka. Yet only because, after the people's demonstrations in 2020 and providing the territory of his own country for attacking Ukraine, Lukashenka simply has nowhere else to go. And from this point of view, the relationship between Putin's Russia and Lukashenka's Belarus is also a vivid example of "uncivilised divorce", of forced integration by two authoritarian regimes.

And it is this forced integration and unwillingness to build equal relations with neighbours that makes all those who can still move, scatter away from Moscow.