Parade in honor of Victory Day in Moscow was unexpectedly visited by almost all leaders of the CIS

For the second year in a row, Vladimir Putin spoke from the podium at the Victory Parade not only about the holiday – “in honor of our fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers, who glorified and immortalized their names by defending the Fatherland.” But also about the fact that the situation repeats itself one way or another. Civilization, said the President (who is also the Supreme Commander-in-Chief), “is once again at a decisive, turning point”: “A real war has been unleashed against our Motherland.” But, he explained, if “we rebuffed international terrorism”, then “we will protect the inhabitants of Donbass, we will ensure our security.”

A year ago, when the military operation in Ukraine had just begun, Putin already said: “Russia gave a preemptive rebuff to aggression. It was a forced, timely and only right decision. The decision of a sovereign, strong, independent country”. But “Western globalist elites still talk about their exclusivity, pit people and split societies,” destroy the values ​​that “make a person a person,” Putin said this time. “It seems,” Putin continued, “they have forgotten what the insane claims of the Nazis for world domination led to. They forgot who defeated this monstrous, total evil, who stood up as a wall for their native land and did not spare their lives for the sake of the liberation of the peoples of Europe.

Judging by the president’s words, the tasks of the global West (he did not give the names of specific countries or the names of their capitals in this context) are as follows: to achieve the collapse of Russia; cross out the results of the Second World War; finally break the system of global security; strangle any sovereign centers of development. Russia does not forget that the country does not have “unfriendly, hostile peoples either in the West or in the East (there are only unfriendly states with relevant government regulations. – Vedomosti)”.

Apparently, this is why Russia, as the president noted, pays tribute to both the members of the Resistance who fought against Nazism and the fighters of the allied armies. “The experience of solidarity and partnership during the years of fighting a common threat is our invaluable heritage,” he said. And he especially noted that the leaders of the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) gathered on Red Square in Moscow: “I see in this a grateful attitude to the feat of our ancestors.”

Seven of the nine leaders of the CIS countries attended the Victory Day parade on May 9, 2023 in Moscow. These are the presidents of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Kyrgyzstan – Sadyr Zhaparov, Tajikistan – Emomali Rahmon, Uzbekistan – Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Belarus – Alexander Lukashenko and Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan. The head of Turkmenistan (an associate member of the CIS) Serdar Berdimuhamedov also arrived.

Only two leaders of the CIS countries did not go to Moscow – the presidents of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev and Moldova, Maia Sandu. No wonder. For example, relations between Moscow and Chisinau deteriorated sharply after the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine. The fate of Russian peacekeepers in the unrecognized Transnistria is in question, and on May 9, the symbols of the Victory in the territory of Moldova were confiscated from the celebrating by the police.

As for the head of Azerbaijan, he refrained from coming to Moscow, since on May 9 and 10 he takes part in events dedicated to the centenary of his father, the predecessor in the presidential post, Heydar Aliyev. He attends the international music festival “Kharibulbul” in the city of Shusha. This settlement came under the control of Azerbaijan as a result of the Karabakh war in 2020.

The heads of state who arrived in Moscow during the parade were on the podium next to Vladimir Putin and veterans of the Great Patriotic War, then laid wreaths at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and had an informal breakfast. The media noted that Lukashenka missed the last event. Vedomosti asked the press secretary of the Russian leader Dmitry Peskov for what reason, but he has not yet provided an answer.

It is noteworthy that just a few days before the parade, it was possible to speak with confidence only about the arrival of the Kyrgyz leader Zhaparov, who chairs the CIS and was invited to Moscow in advance, back in March (see Vedomosti, April 24). The situation was seriously replayed on the eve of Victory Day, when the leaders of the Commonwealth countries announced (in various forms) in turn about the upcoming visit to Russia: Tokayev, Pashinyan, etc. And someone (like Lukashenka) arrived quietly, without disclosing the obvious goals of the visit.

The presence of a significant group of foreign leaders at the Victory Parade speaks of their desire to continue cooperation with Russia, Dmitry Ofitserov-Belsky, a researcher at IMEMO RAS, believes. The fact that a year ago there was no question of their mass arrival, but now the situation has changed, speaks of the failure of the West’s attempts to isolate Russia from its neighbors in the CIS, says Ivan Konovalov, director of the 21st Century Technology Development Fund. This indicates “an objective assessment by the leaders of these countries of the course of the military special operation,” Konovalov believes.

Indeed, in 2022, two and a half months after the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, not a single foreign leader was present at the May 9 events. As the press secretary of the President of Russia Peskov explained at the time, the Kremlin did not invite them, since “this is not an anniversary date.” In 2021, apart from Putin, only Tajik President Rahmon was at the parade.

And the calculations of Vedomosti confirm this trend: as a rule, distinguished foreign guests of the holiday, if we are not talking about big celebrations, are not numerous. In 2019, there were no foreign leaders at all, although there was a figure comparable at that time in terms of political weight – ex-president of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Moscow was visited mainly by the leaders of those post-Soviet states in which the European vector in foreign policy is not of paramount importance compared to the Russian or Chinese vector, said Alexander Karavaev, a specialist in the Caucasus and Central Asia, a researcher at the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences. “The exception is Armenia. Pashinyan flew to the Russian capital, most likely, for the sake of consultations with Putin on the issues of the Armenian-Azerbaijani settlement. Today, Baku and Yerevan, not without difficulties, are conducting intensive negotiations in order to reach the signing of a peace agreement,” the expert noted.

Pashinyan’s arrival in Moscow is primarily related to the problem of the Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiation process, agrees Stanislav Pritchin, senior researcher at the Center for Post-Soviet Studies at IMEMO RAS. “Armenia has not been able to achieve favorable positions for itself in the dialogue with Azerbaijan. The meeting of foreign ministers in Washington came to almost nothing. On the nose of the negotiations in Brussels, – said the expert. – Yerevan does not have levers of pressure on Baku. The prime minister recently acknowledged that the presence of a European mission on the border did not solve the security problem.” According to Pritchin, Pashinyan sees this trip as an occasion to discuss this issue with the Russian president and return the country to the Russian track, which now seems not as ineffective for them as it used to be.