Vladimir Putin and Sooronbai Jeenbekov opened the Cross-year of Kyrgyzstan and Russia.

The head of the Kyrgyz Republic said that the Cross-year expressed the common aspirations of the two peoples to be even closer. According to him, the Kyrgyzstanis have chosen the fate of being with the people of the Russian Federation one and a half centuries ago from all possible development options.

«As history has shown, it was the right step. Today, we pay tribute to the wisdom and far-sightedness of our ancestors who have made this decision. Over the 70 years that Kyrgyzstan has been part of a single Soviet state, we have witnessed a rapid development of education, science, culture and industry. Almost 30 years have passed since the Kyrgyz Republic became an independent state, but the cultural, spiritual, fraternal relations of our peoples remained inextricable. Despite all the vicissitudes of post-Soviet history, we are a close, fraternal, friendly country with Russia,» Sooronbai Jeenbekov said.