MOSCOW, December 23. /TASS/. Russia has completed the project of gratuitous transfer of the S-300 air defense systems to Kazakhstan, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said on Wednesday.

"We have completed the project to transfer without charge the S-300 air defense systems to Kazakhstan, taking into consideration the fact that this is a weighty, if not main, contribution to the integrated air defense system, which, one may say, has become a reality, and now its hardware component has been built up to the expected strength," Shoigu said during a meeting with Kazakh Defense Minister Imangali Tasmagambetov.

The Russian minister noted that the transfer of the S-300 air defense system was even more relevant in the current environment, when various threats are observed near Kazakhstan’s border. "From different areas of the region and around the borders of the republic," he said.

The defense ministers’ council of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a loose alliance of former Soviet republics, has also approved an action plan for the next year and a plan of measures on joint air defense system.