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Kyrgyz President Arrives In Russia For Putin Meeting, Possible Solo Seat At WWII Events

By RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service, RFE/RL's Tajik Service May 07, 2023

Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov has arrived in Moscow for bilateral meetings with President Vladimir Putin and to attend a victory parade in the Russian capital to mark the end of World War II, likely making him the only foreign head of state to be at the May 9 events.

Japarov's press service announced the official visit and arrival on the presidential website, saying the Kyrgyz leader was met at Vnukovo Airport by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin.

Attendance by foreign officials at commemorations of what Russia calls the Great Patriotic War has waned since Moscow's illegal annexation of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.

All five Central Asian republics were part of the Soviet Union at the time of World War II but declared independence along with nine other countries as the Russian-led, nominal union collapsed in 1991.

Putin has called the dissolution of the Soviet Union the "greatest geopolitical tragedy" of the last century, and his efforts during two decades of increasingly authoritarian leadership, including the invasion of Ukraine, have evoked comparisons with the former Russian and Soviet empires.

In 2021, longtime Tajik President Emomali Rahmon was the only head of state to attend the Victory Day parade.

Last year, a little over two months after Russia's unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, no foreign leaders came to the WWII celebrations in Moscow.

Putin once again invited Rahmon to this year's commemoration events, according to the Tajik side.

Rahmon's office did not say whether he had accepted the invitation.

Japarov's office said the Kyrgyz head of state would be a "guest of honor" at the victory parade.

It also said Japarov would hold a bilateral meeting with Putin to discuss "current issues on the bilateral and multilateral agenda, as well as the future of further development of mutually beneficial cooperation."

Kyrgyzstan experienced a so-called Tulip Revolution in 2005 amid street protests demanding political reforms that made it a beacon of fledgling democracy in a region more routinely stocked with postcommunist authoritarians.

Putin dismissed pro-democracy events there and in other post-Soviet republics including Georgia and Ukraine as "color revolutions" fomented by Western meddling.

Kyrgyzstan is part of the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a military alliance in Eurasia that also includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan.

But Japarov was a surprise no-show at a gathering last year of the Russia-led Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in St. Petersburg on Putin's 70th birthday.

Kyrgyzstan then abruptly canceled CSTO training drills in a move that hawkish Russian lawmaker Konstantin Zatulin suggested was a reflection of Bishkek indulging in a "game" and wishing "not to fall under any spread of Western sanctions."

Kyrgyzstan is a member of the Eurasian Economic Union, a trading bloc dominated by Russia that also includes Belarus, Armenia, and Kazakhstan.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/kyrgyz-president-russia- visit-japarov-putin-victory-day/32400550.html

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Kyrgyz President Arrives In Russia For Putin Meeting, Possible Solo Seat At WWII Events