ABSTRACT
The Commonwealth of Independent States – the CIS – is the most obvious organizational option for promoting Russian influence in the post-Soviet space and a good starting point for analysing integration and Russia’s attempt to recreate its former grandeur. The CIS was founded by the signing of the Belavezh accords on 21 December 1991 by the presidents of 11 former Soviet republics (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyztan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan).1
