Commonwealth of Independent States
Based on Wikipedia: Commonwealth of Independent States
The Organization That Replaced an Empire
In December 1991, three men met in a hunting lodge deep in the primeval forest of Belovezhskaya Pushcha, near the Polish border. They were the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. By the time they left, the Soviet Union was dead.
Not dying. Not declining. Dead.
The document they signed, known as the Belovezha Accords, declared that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had "effectively ceased to exist." In its place, they proclaimed something new: the Commonwealth of Independent States, or CIS. It was a remarkable act of political audacity. Three republics had just dismantled one of the two superpowers that had dominated the twentieth century, and they did it with a piece of paper signed in a forest.
What Exactly Is the CIS?
The Commonwealth of Independent States is a regional intergovernmental organization. Think of it as a club for former Soviet republics, a way to maintain some of the connections that existed when they were all part of the same country without actually being the same country anymore.
The CIS covers a vast territory. At over twenty million square kilometers, it spans eleven time zones, from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean. Nearly 250 million people live within its member states. The organization encourages cooperation in economic matters, political affairs, and military coordination. It has powers related to trade, finance, lawmaking, and security, including efforts to prevent cross-border crime.
But here's the crucial thing to understand about the CIS: it was always more of an idea than an institution. Unlike the European Union, which has binding laws, a parliament with real power, and a common currency, the CIS has remained loose and voluntary. Member states can pick and choose which agreements to follow. Some treaties have teeth. Many don't.
How the Soviet Union Fell Apart
To understand the CIS, you need to understand what came before it.
The Soviet Union was created in 1922, when the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic joined with the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, and the Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Over the following decades, the USSR expanded to include fifteen republics stretching from the Baltic states in the west to the Central Asian steppes in the east.
By the late 1980s, the Soviet system was crumbling. Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, tried to save it through reforms called perestroika, meaning restructuring, and glasnost, meaning openness. He wanted to modernize the Soviet economy and allow more political freedom while keeping the union together.
In March 1991, Gorbachev held a referendum asking citizens whether they wanted to preserve the Soviet Union as a reformed federation of sovereign republics. Most people voted yes. But that referendum was the high-water mark of Gorbachev's efforts. Five months later, hardline Communist Party members staged a coup, trying to remove Gorbachev and reverse his reforms.
The coup failed. But it accelerated exactly what the plotters had hoped to prevent.
In the aftermath, republic after republic declared independence. The Baltic states, which had been forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940, were the most determined to leave. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania never joined the CIS at all. They wanted nothing to do with any organization that included Russia and reminded them of Soviet domination.
A week after Ukraine held its independence referendum on December 1, 1991, with over ninety percent voting to leave the Soviet Union, the three leaders met in that forest lodge. Ukraine's vote had made clear that the Soviet Union could not survive. The leaders of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus decided to formalize what had become inevitable.
The Alma-Ata Protocol
The Belovezha Accords were signed by just three republics. Two weeks later, on December 21, 1991, eight more joined.
In Alma-Ata, the capital of Kazakhstan, leaders from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan signed what became known as the Alma-Ata Protocol. This expanded the CIS to eleven members. Georgia joined two years later, in December 1993, bringing the total to twelve.
Of the fifteen former Soviet republics, only three never participated: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The Baltic states had their eyes fixed firmly on Europe and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, commonly called NATO. They saw the CIS as Russia's attempt to maintain influence over its former empire, and they wanted no part of it.
For five days, something strange happened. The Soviet Union and the Commonwealth of Independent States legally coexisted. It wasn't until December 26, 1991, that the Soviet of the Republics formally dissolved the USSR. On that same day, Ivan Korotchenya became the first Executive Secretary of the CIS, and a new chapter began.
The Architecture of the Commonwealth
In January 1993, the CIS adopted its Charter, which established the organization's formal structure and rules. The Charter created an important distinction: founding states versus member states.
A founding state is any country that ratified the original Belovezha Accords and the Alma-Ata Protocol before the Charter was adopted. A member state is any country that ratified the Charter itself. This distinction matters because two important countries, Ukraine and Turkmenistan, ratified the founding agreements but never ratified the Charter. They participated in the CIS without ever becoming full members.
It's a bit like the difference between being at the founding meeting of a club and actually paying your dues and signing the membership agreement.
The Charter also created provisions for associate members and observers. Associate members can participate in some CIS activities without full membership obligations. Observers can watch but have limited involvement.
The Interparliamentary Assembly was established in March 1992 and given international legitimacy in 1995. It's housed in the Tauride Palace in Saint Petersburg, a beautiful building that once served as the seat of the Russian provisional government in 1917. The Assembly acts as a consultative parliamentary body, drafting model laws that national legislatures can adopt. Over 130 documents have been adopted to help harmonize laws across CIS countries.
Ukraine's Complicated Relationship
Of all the stories within the CIS, Ukraine's is the most consequential.
Ukraine was one of the three original signatories of the Belovezha Accords. Without Ukraine's participation, the CIS probably wouldn't exist. But Ukraine never ratified the CIS Charter. Its parliament, called the Verkhovna Rada, never approved full membership. Why? Because Ukraine disagreed with a fundamental provision: Russia being designated as the sole legal successor to the Soviet Union.
This might sound like a technicality, but it wasn't. Being the legal successor meant Russia inherited the Soviet Union's seat on the United Nations Security Council, its nuclear weapons, its embassies around the world, and its debts and assets. Ukraine, which had been the second most powerful Soviet republic, got none of this recognition.
So Ukraine participated in the CIS without being a member. It was an associate member of the CIS Economic Union starting in 1994 and signed the CIS Free Trade Area agreement in 2011. But it always kept the organization at arm's length.
Everything changed in 2014.
When Russia annexed Crimea and war broke out in eastern Ukraine, any pretense of cooperation collapsed. Ukraine began distancing itself from the CIS immediately. In March 2014, a bill was introduced to formally withdraw, though it didn't pass. Ukraine continued participating on what it called a "selective basis," but by September 2015, it had no representatives left in the CIS Executive Committee building.
In April 2018, President Petro Poroshenko announced that Ukraine would formally leave. On May 19, 2018, he signed a decree ending Ukraine's participation in all CIS statutory bodies. Ukraine remains a party to some CIS agreements, like the free trade area, but it is no longer involved in the organization itself.
Georgia's Exit
Georgia's departure from the CIS was more dramatic, though ultimately cleaner.
Georgia joined the CIS in December 1993, two years after the organization was founded. It was a turbulent time. Georgia was embroiled in civil war and separatist conflicts in the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Joining the CIS was partly an acknowledgment of Russia's influence in the region and partly a practical necessity.
But Georgia always chafed under Russian influence. In February 2006, it withdrew from the CIS Council of Defense Ministers, stating that it couldn't be part of two military structures simultaneously since it was pursuing NATO membership.
Then came August 2008.
Russia and Georgia fought a brief but intense war over South Ossetia. Russian forces invaded Georgian territory, and within days Georgia announced it was withdrawing from the CIS entirely. The withdrawal took effect one year later, in August 2009. Georgia remains the only country to have completely left the Commonwealth of Independent States.
Moldova's Gradual Departure
Moldova's relationship with the CIS is currently unraveling in slow motion.
Moldova joined the CIS in 1991 as one of the original members. But like Ukraine, it has experienced Russian pressure through a frozen conflict. Transnistria, a strip of land along Moldova's eastern border with Ukraine, declared independence in 1990 with Russian support. Russian troops have remained there ever since, and the conflict has never been resolved.
Following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Moldova began reconsidering its CIS membership. In June 2022, Foreign Minister Nicu Popescu said the government was considering leaving. Polls showed the public was divided, with about forty-eight percent supporting withdrawal before the invasion made the question urgent.
By late 2022, Moldova had suspended participation in CIS meetings. In February 2023, Popescu announced that Moldova had started withdrawing from multiple CIS treaties as part of its bid to join the European Union. The country had signed around 282 agreements through the CIS; by October 2023, it had denounced seventy of them.
In July 2023, Moldova formally withdrew from the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly. The President of Moldova's Parliament, Igor Grosu, explained the reasoning bluntly: being in the CIS "did not protect the Republic of Moldova from energy blackmail in the middle of winter, from threats and official statements hostile to the independence and sovereignty of the Republic of Moldova."
In December 2023, Moldova announced its intention to withdraw from the CIS entirely by the end of 2024, though it would maintain some economic, social protection, and healthcare agreements. The process continues.
Turkmenistan's Peculiar Position
Turkmenistan occupies a unique place in the CIS. It was a founding state but never ratified the Charter, making it not technically a member. Yet it participated as if it were one for years.
In August 2005, Turkmenistan officially changed its status to associate member. The stated reason was consistency with its internationally recognized neutrality, which the United Nations had acknowledged in 1995. But analysts pointed to other factors: Turkmenistan no longer needed Russia to access natural gas markets, and the country had declining faith in the CIS's ability to maintain regional stability, particularly after the Color Revolutions that swept through several post-Soviet states.
The Color Revolutions
Between 2003 and 2005, three CIS member states experienced dramatic changes of government in what became known as the Color Revolutions.
In Georgia, the Rose Revolution of 2003 overthrew Eduard Shevardnadze, the former Soviet foreign minister who had become Georgia's president. In Ukraine, the Orange Revolution of 2004 brought Viktor Yushchenko to power after disputed elections. In Kyrgyzstan, the Tulip Revolution of 2005 toppled Askar Akayev.
These revolutions shared common features: mass protests against corrupt or authoritarian governments, disputed elections, and outcomes that generally moved countries toward closer ties with the West and away from Russia. They terrified the remaining authoritarian governments in the post-Soviet space and led Russia to view Western democracy promotion with increasing suspicion.
The Color Revolutions accelerated the fragmentation of the CIS. Countries that had experienced them were less willing to follow Russia's lead within the organization. Russia, meanwhile, began pursuing tighter integration with more reliable allies through other mechanisms.
Organizations Within and Beyond the CIS
Three significant organizations have emerged from or alongside the CIS, each representing a different vision of post-Soviet integration.
The Collective Security Treaty Organization, or CSTO, is a military alliance. Originally formed in 1992 as the Collective Security Treaty, it became a formal organization in 2002. Its members commit to mutual defense, similar in concept to NATO's Article 5, though the CSTO has proven less cohesive in practice. When Armenia was attacked by Azerbaijan in 2020 and again in 2022, the CSTO's response was notably muted, leading Armenia to suspend its participation.
The Eurasian Economic Union, or EAEU, is an economic bloc that includes Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Armenia. It has its own customs union and aims to create a single market for goods, services, capital, and labor. Think of it as Russia's answer to the European Union, though with far less integration and institutional depth.
The Union State of Russia and Belarus is the most ambitious project: a proposed supranational union with a common government and currency. It was established by treaty in 1999, but despite over two decades of negotiations, full integration has never been achieved. Belarus has been reluctant to cede sovereignty, and the project remains more aspiration than reality.
The Eastern Partnership
In 2009, the European Union launched the Eastern Partnership, a framework for relations with six post-Soviet states: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. Notably, five of these six were also CIS members or participants at the time.
The Eastern Partnership represented a competing vision for the region's future. Where the CIS offered continued ties with Russia, the Eastern Partnership offered association with Europe, access to EU markets, and eventual membership prospects for some countries.
This competition came to a head in 2013, when Ukraine's president Viktor Yanukovych, under pressure from Russia, rejected an association agreement with the EU. The resulting protests became the Euromaidan revolution, which overthrew Yanukovych and set in motion the events that led to Russia's annexation of Crimea and the war in eastern Ukraine.
The Eastern Partnership has since become the primary framework through which Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine pursue European integration. All three are now EU candidate countries, though the timeline for their accession remains uncertain.
What Remains of the CIS
Today, the CIS has nine full member states: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. But calling Moldova a member requires an asterisk, given its ongoing withdrawal process.
Eight of these nine participate in the CIS Free Trade Area, which reduces tariffs on trade between member states. This economic cooperation is perhaps the most tangible benefit the CIS provides.
But the organization's influence has clearly waned. In March 2007, Igor Ivanov, the secretary of Russia's Security Council, publicly questioned the CIS's usefulness, suggesting that the Eurasian Economic Community, a predecessor to today's EAEU, was becoming more relevant. When Russia's own security officials doubt an organization's value, that tells you something.
The October 2009 CIS summit was notable for who didn't attend: the presidents of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan all skipped it, each having their own disagreements with Russia. The summit came just two months after Georgia's formal exit and underscored the organization's declining cohesion.
Russia's Role and the Future
The CIS has always been, to some degree, Russia's organization. Russia is the largest member by every measure: territory, population, economy, military. It provides the headquarters, sets much of the agenda, and sees the CIS as a way to maintain influence over what it calls the "near abroad."
But Russia's aggressive actions have undermined the very organization meant to keep post-Soviet states in its orbit. The 2008 war with Georgia drove Tbilisi out of the CIS. The 2014 intervention in Ukraine turned Kyiv from a reluctant participant into an active opponent. The 2022 full-scale invasion accelerated Moldova's departure and raised questions in other capitals about the wisdom of remaining tied to Moscow.
Russia has responded by deepening integration with more reliable partners through the CSTO and EAEU rather than trying to revive the broader CIS. Armenia's recent distancing from the CSTO, however, suggests that even these tighter alliances are fraying.
The Commonwealth of Independent States was born from the collapse of one empire. Whether it will survive or slowly dissolve into irrelevance depends largely on choices made in Moscow. So far, those choices have driven members away rather than binding them closer.
A Region in Flux
The post-Soviet space is being remade before our eyes. Ukraine fights for its survival and its European future. Georgia and Moldova pursue EU membership while managing Russian pressure and frozen conflicts on their territory. The Central Asian states balance between Russia, China, and their own aspirations for independence. The South Caucasus remains volatile, with Azerbaijan's military victory over Armenia in 2020 reshaping the regional order.
The CIS may persist as a forum for dialogue and a framework for technical cooperation. Some of its agreements, particularly around trade and the movement of people, provide real value. But as a vehicle for regional integration or Russian influence, it has been overtaken by events.
Three decades after those three leaders met in a forest lodge to dissolve the Soviet Union, the organization they created to replace it is itself dissolving. Not with a dramatic announcement, but gradually, as members drift away one by one toward different futures. The Commonwealth of Independent States was always more about managing a breakup than building something new. The breakup, it turns out, is still happening.