Commonwealth of Independent States

The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) is a regional intergovernmental organisation of states in Eurasia. It was formed following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. It covers an area of 20,368,759 km2 (7,864,422 sq mi) and has an estimated population of 246,200,194. The CIS encourages cooperation in economic, political, and military affairs and has certain powers related to the coordination of trade, finance, lawmaking, and security, including the prevention of cross-border crime. As the USSR disintegrated, Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine signed the Belovezha Accords on 8 December 1991, declaring that the Union had effectively ceased to exist and proclaiming the CIS in its place. On 21 December, these three former Soviet republics and eight additional ones signed the Alma-Ata Protocol, which established the founding declarations and principles of the CIS. Georgia joined the CIS in 1993 but withdrew its membership in 2008 following a war with Russia. Ukraine formally ended its participation in CIS statutory bodies in 2018, although it had stopped participating in the organisation following the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea. Following Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Moldova started to withdraw from the CIS institutional framework, culminating in its denunciation of the CIS treaty, protocol, and charter on 8 April 2026. Eight of the nine CIS member states participate in the CIS Free Trade Area. Three organisations originated from the CIS, namely the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Eurasian Economic Union (alongside subdivisions, the Eurasian Customs Union and the Eurasian Economic Space); and the Union State. While the first and the second are military and economic alliances, the third aims to reach a supranational union of Russia and Belarus with a common government and currency.