The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) is officially established on December 8, 1991, when leaders from Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine signed the Belovezha Accords in Belarus, declaring the Soviet Union dissolved and forming the CIS in its place.
On a following meeting on December 21, 1991, eight more former Soviet republics signed the protocol to join: Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan. creating the initial multi-state CIS organization; (excluding the Baltics and Georgia). Georgia joined the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in December 1993, becoming the last of the former Soviet republics to join the organization, largely due to pressures from internal conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Although it joined, Georgia later left the CIS, officially ending its membership in August 2009. The Baltic Republics, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania never joined the CIS. The CIS Headquarters is in Minsk, Belarus,
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