Georgian President Saakashvili said on 12 August that Georgia will leave the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The CIS replaced the disintegrating Soviet Union as an economic and organisational network in 1991 and mandated Russia's presence as a peacekeeping force in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. "We certainly have to leave the CIS, the CIS failed," President Saakashvili said on 12 August. It "didn't do anything to prevent this [situation]", he said. He appealed to other members of the CIS to withdraw as well. The CIS sponsored the 1994 Agreement on a Ceasefire and Separation of Forces between Georgia and the separatist state of Abkhazia, which mandated Russia to have up to 3,000 peacekeeping troops based in the two separatist regions.
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