Commonwealth of Independent States
Eurasian intergovernmental organization / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)[lower-alpha 1] 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 239,796,010. 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.
Commonwealth of Independent States Содружество Независимых Государств Sodruzhestvo Nezavisimyh Gosudarstv | |
|---|---|
.svg) | |
| Administrative seats | |
| Largest city | Moscow |
| Working language | Russian |
| Type | Intergovernmental |
| Membership | 9 member states
1 associate state |
| Leaders | |
• General Secretary | Sergey Lebedev |
| Legislature | Interparliamentary Assembly[3] |
| Establishment | |
| 8 December 1991 | |
| 21 December 1991 | |
| 22 January 1993 | |
| 20 September 2012 | |
| Area | |
• Total | 20,368,759[4] km2 (7,864,422 sq mi) |
| Population | |
• 2018 estimate |  236,446,000(excluding Crimea) |
• Density | 11.77/km2 (30.5/sq mi) |
| GDP (PPP) | 2022 estimate |
• Total | $5.5 trillion |
• Per capita | $22,500 (approx.) |
| GDP (nominal) | 2022 estimate |
• Total | $2.5 trillion |
• Per capita | $9,000 (approx.) |
| HDI (2017) | 0.740 high |
| Currency | No common currencya Member states
Associate state |
| Time zone | UTC+2 to +12 |
| Driving side | right |
| Internet TLD | .ru, .by, .am, .kz, .kg, .az, .md, .tj, .uz |
Website e-cis | |
a Soviet ruble (руб) used from 1991 to 1994 | |
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. The Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), which had been occupied by the Soviet Union, chose not to participate. Georgia withdrew its membership in 2008 following the Russo-Georgian War. Ukraine formally ended its participation in CIS statutory bodies in 2018, although it had stopped participating in the organization much earlier.[5][6][7] Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine starting from 24 February 2022, Moldova voiced its intention to progressively withdraw from the CIS institutional framework.[8][9]
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, currency, and so on.