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Article: Nothing in common, no wealth. (Commonwealth of Independent States)
- Article from:
- Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
- Article date:
- January 1, 1993
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1993 Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Just as Mikhail Gorbachev predicted, the Commonwealth of Independent States is merely "a soap bubble in history."
On December 8, 1991, the leaders of three Soviet republics--Boris Yeltsin of Russia, Leonid Kravchuk of Ukraine, and Stanislav Shushkevich of Belarus--got together in a comfortable summer cottage near Minsk. Here they wrapped up the Soviet Union, and in its stead created the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The three Slavic republics immediately entered the Commonwealth. Later, five Central Asian Muslim republics--Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan--joined, along with Armenia and Moldova. Azerbaijan, Georgia, ...