At a meeting of the Moscow-dominated Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) on Tuesday in St. Petersburg, he said, according to the Kremlin, that many things have changed dramatically in the past few decades. The founding of the organization in December 1991 was therefore justified with a view to security and economic issues.
The loose association came about before the Soviet Union officially ceased to exist at the end of December 1991 – after around 70 years. With the organization, the cooperation from the Soviet era should be continued. But after the collapse, the former republics developed too differently.
“I have to say that the ties that have remained since the days of the Soviet Union play a positive role by and large,” Putin said. He did not mention that neighboring Ukraine, for example, no longer cooperates in protest against the Russian annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in 2014, or Georgia after an attack by Russia in 2008.
Moscow is demanding binding security guarantees from the West in the face of many conflicts. So NATO should not undertake any further eastward expansion. Russia has many ex-Soviet republics such as Belarus, Kazakhstan and Armenia among its allies.