Between December 26 and 27, 2022, the informal Summit of the leaders of the CIS states took place in the city of Sankt-Petersburg. The meeting should have shown that this Russian-dominated organization, which for years has been trying to present it as an alternative to the more attractive EU and NATO, is relevant and viable, that Moscow enjoys the support of its ex-Soviet partners even in the conditions of the war in Ukraine. Speeches about cooperation cannot mask the reality: the CIS is an outdated organization, in crisis, which has no serious long-term prospects.
CIS, a project that was supposed to keep the USSR alive
The former Soviet republics that joined the CIS believed, in the early 1990s, that membership in this organization guaranteed them that their interests would not be neglected by Moscow. Several of these countries “hosted” more or less frozen regional conflicts, and the Kremlin positioned itself as a guarantor of peace or a long-term mediator in the negotiation process. Others wanted to preserve that status of a participant in important decisions in the system of international relations, and alongside Russia they could sneak into this decision-making process. Only the Baltic States vehemently refused to be part of this Russian-led organization and managed to integrate themselves into regional cooperation projects that operated according to a different logic.
The Commonwealth of Independent States was not necessarily supposed to be something new. Rather, it was to become a place where former Soviet republics could declare and maintain their loyalty to the same Kremlin or the line imposed by its leader. The face change happened only formally, on paper, but not structurally. Most of the leaders of the newly independent states were forced to accept membership in the CIS. Maybe only Kazakhstan and Belarus displayed some complacency and support for the new regional organization, because they saw certain advantages.
The rest of the former Soviet republics hesitated to express their immediate public support and were only constrained by certain circumstances, domestic politics (internal struggles between the old nomenclature, which wanted to preserve control over resources, and the new political elite, which promoted other ideas) or national security (regional conflicts, where Russia appeared as a mediator or guarantor of peace), they returned to the initial decisions, but without much enthusiasm. Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine refused from the start to take part in the military initiatives developed within the CIS. Even fewer states joined the Collective Security Treaty Organization—another Kremlin initiative modeled after NATO. Moreover, certain initiatives aimed at advancing mechanisms of in-depth economic cooperation were stopped in certain periods by Moscow itself because they were affecting its financial interests.
Georgia left the organization after the August 2008 war, and Ukraine no longer participated in the Community's initiatives after the annexation of Crimea, that is, since 2014. In 2018, Petro Poroșenko announced that he had signed and sent to the Ukrainian Rada for approval the decree on exiting the CIS. Ukraine had a special situation, in that although it was, along with Russia and Belarus, a founding state of the CIS, the Kyiv Rada had never ratified the statute of this organization. According to the CIS treaties, a country can apply for formal withdrawal, but each treaty or convention remains binding unless there is a special denunciation for each act ratified by a domestic legislative body. Until now, Ukraine has denounced about 20% of the hundreds of treaties signed within the CIS. Many of these were denounced in 2022, the process being accelerated by the Ukrainian side in the context of the extended war against Ukraine.
The Republic of Moldova was among those states that immediately signed the CIS statute, and the president at the time, Mircea Snegur, explained that it was hoped that joining the CIS would prevent the looming conflict in Transnistria. War could not be avoided and it broke out in the spring of 1992. Two years after the end of the war, the Chisinau Parliament ratified the CIS statute.
The Republic of Moldova did not participate in the meeting held in late December; moreover, Chisinau's decision to no longer send representatives to CIS meetings was announced by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration, Nicu Popescu, and the president of the parliament, Igor Grosu, announced back in May that the Republic of Moldova was reducing its activities in the CIS because of the Russian war against Ukraine , but also foreign policy objectives. Previously, in March, Maia Sandu claimed that leaving the CIS would become possible when her country approached European integration.
In the meantime, Moldova obtained the status of a candidate country, but an official statement to the effect of leaving the CIS was not made public. However, the new candidate country status does not seem to be incompatible with that of a CIS member country. Why? Because all the agreements, directives or conventions the Republic of Moldova joined in the context of the European rapprochement process were carefully analyzed by the partners to avoid incompatibilities in the future. According to Janis Mazeiks, the head of the EU Delegation to Chisinau, Moldova has to analyze about 200 documents, but because the incompatibilities are so few, they do not create difficulties in fulfilling the recommendations of the European Commission.
CSI, an organization without long-term prospects
The CIS has remained a club of leaders with predilections for authoritarian regimes, with few exceptions (we are considering here Armenia, where in 2018 there was a peaceful transfer of power from one government to another, but which is forced to participate due to the complicated context of Nagorno Karabakh). The interests of some member states are mutually exclusive, and many problems between them have remained unresolved. Intra-organizational economic cooperation mechanisms operate according to outdated models.
A somewhat more recent factor undermining the CIS is the international isolation and economic sanctions imposed on Russia as a result of its aggression in Ukraine: association with Moscow becomes harmful to national economies and the projection of foreign policy interests. In this regard, Kazakhstan has already made its own measurements and assessed the impact of the sanctions as negative. Astana has no intention of helping its economic partner to circumvent sanctions. Moreover, it will continue to collaborate with partners such as China, the US and the UK to attract investment, something that Russia can no longer boast of.
Azerbaijan too assessed the impact of the sanctions imposed on Russia on its own economy. Azerbaijani experts are of the opinion that the current situation offers new opportunities for this country, not only with regard to energy, but also logistics, transport, because it can take over part of the role previously played by Russia as a transport corridor. Adding here the recent agreement signed in Bucharest for the creation of the green electricity carier cable from Azerbaijan to Central Europe, it can be inferred that the states are adapting to the new context according to their own national interests, not those of Moscow.
The war in Ukraine accelerates certain processes that Moscow wanted to avoid, including the acquisition by certain states (former members or in the process of withdrawal) of the status of a candidate country or the European perspective. The conflict also shows the imperial claims of Moscow and how it actually regards other states that were part of the USSR.
Even the Russian language no longer represents that driving force within the CIS that Vladimir Putin appreciated as a powerful unifying force that holds the multinational member states together. The year 2023 will be the year of the Russian language in the CIS space and aims to contribute to mutual spiritual and cultural enrichment. It's just that the same Russian language is also used as a weapon or instrument of pressure on the states that oppose this unifying force persistently projected by the Kremlin leader.
If the events taking place in what Russia defines as its “sphere of influence” are analyzed in detail, then one can see initiatives to test not only the Kremlin's vigilance, but also its ability to project military force and economic or energy pressure . Armenia, through Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, draws the attention of Vladimir Putin that the Russian peacekeepers are outmatched and cannot ensure peace in Nagorno Karabakh. Azerbaijan is testing Russia's ability to effectively distribute its military-strategic attention to other regions as well. Ukraine denounces treaty after treaty and moves forward in bilateral negotiations with CIS member states, accepting generators from Kazakhstan and openly declaring that it will not allow Moscow to reach Transnistria via Odesa.
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are still seeking a compromise on border demarcation. Moldova would rather not be associated with an organization where the affairs are managed by an aggressor state and whose troops are stationed illegally on its territory and accepts aid to ensure its energy independence. Only one country, Belarus, shows enthusiasm for the partnership with Moscow, and not because it would benefit from the economic cooperation, but because its leader has long been ostracized by the international community.
The regional integration projects proposed by the Russian Federation after the dissolution of the Soviet Union cannot harmonize the different interests of the ex-Soviet states in order to generate benefits for them. Even if at this moment there are voices that refuse to recognize these realities, the strategies approached by each member country, rather to separate from than to integrate into the CIS, are part of a new reality that Moscow will be forced to accept .
