“Moldova doesn’t have any value for the Commonwealth of Independent States,” the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin stated in the annual televised press conference, IPN reports.

“Until recently, this was the poorest country in Europe. Now Ukraine took its place,” he stated when he was asked to speak about the integration processes inside the CIS after Moldova said that it would abandon the Commonwealth.

He noted that all the integration plans in post-Soviet Russia are based on voluntary principles and it is the Moldovan administration’s decision to give a new development direction to the country.