Member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States

The Creation Agreement remained the main constituent document of the CIS until January 1993, when the CIS Charter (Russian: Устав, Ustav) was adopted.[1] The charter formalized the concept of membership: a member country is defined as a country that ratifies the CIS Charter (sec. 2, art. 7). Parties to CIS Creation Agreement but not the Charter are considered to be "Founding States" but not a full members.

Turkmenistan has not ratified the Charter and therefore is not formally a member of the CIS. Nevertheless, it has consistently participated in the CIS as if it were a member state. Turkmenistan changed its CIS standing to associate member as of 26 August 2005 in order to be consistent with its UN-recognised international neutrality status[2][3]

Although Ukraine was one of the states which ratified the Creation Agreement in December 1991, making it a Founding State of the CIS, it chose not to ratify the CIS Charter[4][5] as it disagrees with Russia being the only legal successor state to the Soviet Union. Thus it has never been a full a member of the CIS.[6][7] However, Ukraine kept participating in the CIS, despite not being a member. In 1993, Ukraine became an associate member of CIS,[8]

Following the Russian military intervention in Ukraine and annexation of Crimea, relations between Ukraine and Russia deteriorated, leading Ukraine to consider ending its participation in the CIS. As Ukraine never ratified the Charter, it could cease its informal participation in the CIS. However, to fully terminate its relationship with the CIS it would need to legally withdraw from the Creation Agreement, as Georgia did previously. On 14 March 2014, a bill was introduced to Ukraine's parliament to denounce their ratification of the CIS Creation Agreement, but it was never approved.[9][10][11] Following the 2014 parliamentary election, a new bill to denounce the CIS agreement was introduced.[12][13] In September 2015, the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed Ukraine will continue taking part in the CIS "on a selective basis".[14][15] Since that month, Ukraine has had no representatives in the CIS Executive Committee building.[14] In April 2018, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko indicated that Ukraine would formally leave the CIS.[16] As of 1 June the CIS secretariat had not received formal notice from Ukraine of its withdrawal from the CIS, a process which will take 1 year following notice being given.[17][18][19][20][21][22][23]

On 19 May 2018, President Poroshenko signed a decree formally ending Ukraine's participation in CIS statutory bodies.[24] The CIS secretariat stated that it will continue inviting Ukraine to participate.[21] Ukraine has further stated that it intends to review its participation in all CIS agreements, and only continue in those that are in its interests.[25][26] The CIS secretariat stated that they will keep inviting Ukraine to participate in CIS activities.[21]

In light of Russia's support for the independence of breakaway regions within Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine,[27][28][29] as well as its violation of the Istanbul Agreement (see Adapted Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty), legislative initiatives to denounce the agreement on the creation of CIS were tabled in Moldova's parliament on 25 March 2014, though they were not approved.[30][31][32] A similar bill was proposed in January 2018.[33][34]

List of members

Country	Signed	Ratified	Charter ratified	Membership Status
Armenia	1991-12-21	1992-02-18	1994-03-16	official member
Azerbaijan	1991-12-21	1993-09-24	1993-12-14	official member
Belarus	1991-12-08	1991-12-10	1994-01-18	official member
Kazakhstan	1991-12-21	1991-12-23	1994-04-20	official member
Kyrgyzstan	1991-12-21	1992-03-06	1994-04-12	official member
Moldova	1991-12-21	1994-04-08	1994-06-27	official member
Russia	1991-12-08	1991-12-12	1993-07-20	official member
Tajikistan	1991-12-21	1993-06-26	1993-08-04	official member
Turkmenistan	1991-12-21	1991-12-26	Not ratified	unofficial associate member
Ukraine	1991-12-08	1991-12-10	Not ratified	de facto participating; officially not a member
Uzbekistan	1991-12-21	1992-04-01	1994-02-09	official member

Country	Signed	Ratified	Charter ratified	Withdrawn	Effective
Georgia	—	3 December 1993	19 April 1994	18 August 2008	17 August 2009

Following the overthrow of Eduard Shevardnadze in Georgia, Georgia officially withdrew from the Council of Defense Ministers in February 2006 with a statement that "Georgia has taken a course to join NATO and it cannot be part of two military structures simultaneously",[35][36]

In the aftermath of the South Ossetian war in 2008, President Saakashvili announced during a public speech in the capital city Tbilisi that Georgia would leave the CIS[37] and the Georgian Parliament voted unanimously on 14 August 2008 to withdraw from the regional organization.[38] On 18 August 2008 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia sent a note to the CIS Executive Committee notifying it of the aforesaid resolutions of the Parliament of Georgia and Georgia’s withdrawal from CIS.[39] In accordance with the CIS Charter (sec. 1, art. 9),[1] Georgia's withdrawal came into effect 12 months later, on 18 August 2009.[40][41]