Lebedev expressed confidence that the meeting on December 26th and 27th will give additional boost to cooperation between the countries of the bloc.

The official CIS summit took place in the capital of Kazakhstan, Astana, in mid-October.

On that occasion, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, proposed to his colleagues to hold an informal meeting in Saint Petersburg at the end of the year.

In October 2021, Saint Petersburg was also the stage of an informal CIS summit.

Created in 1991 after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the CIS currently includes nine members: Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Ukraine and Turkmenistan have not participated in community meetings for years although they belong to the category of founding states according to the CIS website.

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