Belarusian President, Alexander Lukashenko, for the second year in a row refused to visit Russia within an informal CIS summit dedicated to horse races for his Russian counterpart's, Dmitry Medvedev, prizes. However, this year, as in the past, the president of Ukraine also declined the invitation of Russian leader.
As a spokesperson of Viktor Yanukovych, Anna German, reported, Ukrainian leader has no such kind of plans, and this issue was not even discussed with him, Gazeta.ru informs. In 2009, the then President of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko, also rejected to go to horse races.
This year’s horse races for the prize of the President of Russia will not be held in Moscow but in Rostov-on-Don, because Dmitry Medvedev takes part in the EU-Russia summit there.
Besides the leaders of Belarus and Ukraine, almost all the leaders of CIS countries refused to come to the informal summit. The only exception is the president of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan. In addition, the second consecutive year the races will be attended by the president of unrecognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Sergei Bagapsh and Eduard Kokoity.
Regarding the leaders of the Central Asian republics, then they will be able to meet with Dmitry Medvedev on June 11-12 in Tashkent summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
