The CIS summit and the geopolitics of responsible power
An informal meeting of CIS heads of state was held in St. Petersburg on December 26 and 27, 2022. Russian President Vladimir Putin, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Kyrgyz President Sadyr Zhaparov, Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon, Turkmen President Serdar Berdymukhamedov, and Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev attended. That is, the leaders of the nine states that were part of the USSR. Among those absent were the Baltic states, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. For Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia the situation is clear: