Historical ties and cooperation allow members of the Commonwealth of Independent States to go through the pandemic better than other countries, Vladimir Putin said.
At the informal CIS summit, the Russian president noted that many dramatic changes have taken place over the past decades, but the very creation of the Commonwealth was justified. The countries have strengthened cooperation in many areas, including in the security and economy.
"The preserved ties from the times of the Soviet Union play their positive role - common communications, common enterprises, which work as partners - value chains in a rather high degree of cooperation, all this has not only been preserved, but many things have been advanced and developed on a completely new ground, a completely new basis. It allows us to go through the difficult times of the pandemic <...> but we, preserving the opportunities and competitive advantages that we inherited from the past, manage to overcome these difficulties even better than other countries of the world," said Vladimir Putin.
In addition, the president has invited the chief sanitary doctor of Russia, Anna Popova, to speak at the summit and talk about future work in the fight against coronavirus.
The head of Rospotrebnadzor called to build a unified regional system for the development of scientific research and information exchange to counteract threats to biological safety.
"Against the backdrop of the pandemic, there has been an increase in investment in the creation of high-level biological defense laboratories in many countries around the world. It is clear that research in molecular epidemiology and biosafety requires investment, personnel and infrastructure, research centers and laboratories," she said at the informal CIS summit.
Popova also spoke in favor of technological and research independence and the strengthening of a single mechanism for preventing and responding to biological safety risks.
The chief sanitary doctor stressed that the CIS countries have a number of significant advantages in the form of a sanitary and epidemiological service, unified approaches to this work, a similar system of personnel training and a common language.
The traditional informal meeting of CIS leaders is held in St. Petersburg at the initiative of Vladimir Putin. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Presidents Ilham Aliyev (Azerbaijan), Alexander Lukashenko (Belarus), Kassym-Jomart Tokayev (Kazakhstan), Sadyr Zhaparov (Kyrgyzstan), Emomali Rahmon (Tajikistan), Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov (Turkmenistan), Shavkat Mirziyev (Uzbekistan), and Kazakhstan's first president Nursultan Nazarbayev are taking part in it.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: official website of the President of the Russian Federation
Based on materials from RIA Novosti