NEWLY INDEPENDENT STATES

Newly independent states: translation

The Newly Independent States (NIS) ofEurasiaconstitute those 15 republics that gained independence from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1991, though sometimes Russia is excepted from this group due to its long history as an independent state and as the governing force in the Soviet Union. The NIS can be regionally grouped as follows: theBaltic States(Estonia,Latvia, andLithuania); the Western Republics (Ukraine,Belarus, andMoldova); the Caucasian Republics (Georgia,Armenia, andAzerbaijan); andCentral Asia(Kazakhstan,Uzbekistan,Turkmenistan,Kyrgyzstan, andTajikistan). With the exception of the Baltic States, all are members of theCommonwealth of Independent States. The inclusion of the Baltic countries is sometimes rejected as these states were fully independent during the interwar period (1918–1939).