YAROSLAV ROMANCHUK

President of Belarus, Aliaksandr Lukashenka’s uncomplimentary words about the Russian-Belarusian relations and about Russian Premier Vladimir Putin personally have little to do with transformation of the CIS whose leaders will hold the summit in the Moldovan capital of Chisinau on October 9.

ALEXEY VLASOV, SERGEI MIKHEEV

"Every year somebody says that the Commonwealth of Independent States is dead as organization. However, what do we need this organization for? Unfortunately, in many respects the question cannot be answered in an optimistic way", Alexey Vlasov.

STANISLAV BELKOVSKY

Summing up the Russian foreign policy in the post-Soviet space in 2006, we should acknowledge that Russia has ceased to be a regional power.

VALERY FEDOROV

Nowadays the collapse of the Soviet Union, which took place 15 years ago, is not widely discussed in Russia and other New Independent States. This indicates that people living in the former Soviet Republics have got accustomed to the fact of disintegration.

ANDREY MISHIN

The CIS is of great help for the multilateral cooperation with the neighbors. Ukraine’s withdrawal from the CIS would result in the paralysis of the economy, and of the transport infrastructure in the first place.

YAROSLAV ROMANCHUK

Aliaksandr Lukashenka has concentrated all Belarusian diplomacy and Belarus’ foreign policy on Russia. For the last 10 years Minsk has conducted explicitly unilateral foreign policy in order to win Moscow’s favor.

ZAAL ANJAPARIDZE

Tbilisi intends to show Moscow and the whole international community that the Saakashvili Administration is eager to restart the two countries’ dialogue.

VLADIMIR ROMANENKO

Today we have the basis for reshaping the CIS architecture making it really effective. This basis has been indicated by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev – it consists in perceiving the CIS as a free space of the post-Soviet integration.