NUR-SULTAN, May 8. /TASS/. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin have discussed preparations for a meeting of the Eurasian Economic Council, the Kazakh presidential press service said in a statement on Thursday, following a telephone call between the two presidents.
"Before concluding the conversation, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and Vladimir Putin considered matters related to the upcoming meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council," the statement reads.
According to reports, the meeting is scheduled to take place on May 19.
"When discussing the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, the parties welcomed close cooperation between the two countries. Vladimir Putin said that Russia was monitoring the Kazakh government’s steps to prevent the infection from spreading. The Russian leader commended Kazakhstan’s measures aimed at supporting individuals and small and medium-sized businesses," the statement adds.
The two heads of state also exchanged congratulations on the 75th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War.
The Kremlin press service said earlier in a statement that Putin and Tokayev had pointed out that the anniversary had special significance for the two countries’ people, determined to preserve memory of their fathers and grandfathers who had crushed Nazism.
Coronavirus pandemic
In late December 2019, Chinese officials notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in every corner of the globe, including Russia.
On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, over 3,800,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 265,000 deaths have been reported.