Commonwealth of Independent States

The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) is a regional intergovernmental organization 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 relating to the coordination of trade, finance, lawmaking, and security, including cross-border crime prevention.

As the Soviet Union disintegrated, Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine signed the Belovezha Accords on 8 December 1991, declaring that the Union had effectively ceased to exist and proclaimed the CIS in its place. On 21 December, the Alma-Ata Protocol was signed, but Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania chose not to participate. Georgia 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 organization in 2014 following the Russian annexation of Crimea. Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Moldova voiced its intention to progressively withdraw from the CIS institutional framework.

Eight of the nine CIS member states participate in the CIS Free Trade Area. Three organizations 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.