One year after its short war with Russia, Georgia on Tuesday (18 August) became the first country to withdraw from the grouping of former Soviet republics, in a sign of rebellion met with disdain from Moscow.
The Georgian foreign ministry said yesterday that all legal procedures related to the country's withdrawal from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) have been finalized.
Actually, I'm being unfair. The Georgians sent notice a year ago and under the CIS rules, a member state needs to give one-year notice before getting out. You'd think that there might be an exception for when one member is invaded by another member--but no.
But now the papers are all finally in order with the right stamps and signatures, so Georgia is officially out of the Russian-dominated CIS.
