You're reading: Ukrainian ambassador and Russian president clash at CIS summit

Ukraine’s ambassador in Kyrgyzstan, Mykola Doroshenko, and Russian President Vladimir Putin clashed over Russia's chairmanship of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in 2017 at a summit held in Bishkek on Sept. 16.

Doroshenko, who led the Ukrainian CIS delegation, stated that Ukraine would not accept Russia as chairman of the CIS next year following Moldova’s turning down the role.

“Russia violated the norms of international law and annexed part of Ukraine’s territory, as well as facilitating an armed conflict in the east of Ukraine,” said Doroshenko.

He also added that Ukraine would carry out a population census in 2020. However, it would be worthless if Russia included the population of the annexed territories in its own population count, he said.

Putin, who delayed the start of the summit by two hours due to his late arrival, responded that “Russia has not annexed anything.”

“Everything that happened to Crimea is the result of the wrongdoing of certain political forces that led the country to the coup,” Putin said, referring to the Euromaidan Revolution popular uprising in Ukraine that ousted the country’s corrupt former president, Viktor Yanukovych.

“Crimea joined Russia as a result of people’s will. This action complies with international law and the UN statute,” said Putin.

In fact, Russia annexed Crimea after organizing a sham referendum on the peninsula following the Kremlin’s military takeover there in late February and early March 2014. Only Russia and a handful of its allies have recognized the illegal annexation of Ukraine’s territory.

Putin said that Ukraine had not signed and ratified the CIS statute, and thus it was highly unlikely that its suggestions regarding the structure of the CIS would be taken into account.

The 25th summit of CIS in the Kyrgyz capital started with a minute of silence in commemoration of the late Islam Karimov, the autocratic leader of Uzbekistan, who died on Sept. 2 having ruled the country since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. Uzbekistan’s interim president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, did not
attend the summit.

Video of the incident can be viewed here.