President of Russia: Georgia lost when it left CIS

Georgia is unlikely to profit from lezving the Commonwealth of
Independent States, and is losing a number of opportunities, Russian
President Dmitry Medvedev told a press conference after a summit of
the CIS and the CSTO in Moscow on Friday, RIA Novosti reports.

The CIS is an organization which emerged after the collapse of the
Soviet Union. A declaration on the establishment of the CIS was signed
on December 21st 1991 in Alma-Ata by the leaders of Azerbaijan,
Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine. On the 3rd of December 1993
Georgia joined the CIS

In 2006 Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili spoke of the
possibility of withdrawal from the CIS, but the Georgian parliament
did not support it. After the August war of 2008 Georgia officially
withdrew from the CIS.