Post-Soviet states

There are 15 post-Soviet states in total: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

[3][4] Subsequently, the 12 remaining Union Republics seceded, with all of them jointly establishing the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and most of them later joining the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).

On the other hand, the three Baltic states pursued a policy of near-total disengagement with the Russian-dominated post-Soviet sphere, instead focusing on integrating themselves with the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

In the political language of Russia and some other post-Soviet states, the term near abroad (Russian: ближнее зарубежье, romanized: blizhnee zarubezhe) refers to the independent republics that emerged after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

The several de facto independent states presently lacking international recognition (read below: Separatist conflicts) are not listed separately.

[45] The reconfiguration of public finance in compliance with capitalist principles resulted in dramatically reduced spending on health, education and other social programs, leading to a sharp increase in poverty and economic inequality.

[46][47] The economic shocks associated with wholesale privatization resulted in the excess deaths of roughly 1 million working age individuals throughout the former Soviet bloc in the 1990s.

[48][49] A study by economist Steven Rosefielde asserts that 3.4 million Russians died premature deaths from 1990 to 1998, partly as the result of the shock therapy policies imposed by the Washington Consensus.

[50] The initial transition decline was eventually arrested, and after 1995 the economy in the post-Soviet states began to recover, with GDP switching from negative to positive growth rates.

[51] According to economist Branko Milanović, in 2015 many former Soviet republics and other former communist countries still have not caught up to their 1991 levels of output, including Bosnia-Herzegovina, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Serbia, Tajikistan and Ukraine.

"[54] Most of the new states' constitutions define directly or indirectly the economic system of the countries parallel to the democratic transition of the 1990s, emphasising the free market economy.

[55] Change in gross domestic product (GDP) in constant prices, 1991–2015[56] *Economy of most Soviet republics started to decline in 1989–1990, thus indices for 1991 do not match pre-reform maximums.

[citation needed] The Eurasian Economic Community (EURASEC), formerly the CIS Customs Union, was established by Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.

In 2013, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia announced plans to seek membership, but division over the issue in Ukraine led to the Revolution of Dignity after the Ukrainian government backed out of an EU Eastern Partnership in favor of the union.

Four member states, Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova, established the GUAM group that was largely seen as intending to counter Russian dominance in the region.

The post-Soviet disputed states of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria are all members of the Community for Democracy and Rights of Nations which aims to forge closer integration.

[86] All of these had originally more limited terms but through decrees or referendums prolonged their stay in office (a practice also followed by Presidents Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus and Emomali Rahmon of Tajikistan).

[90] The participation of Akayev's son and daughter in the 2005 Kyrgyz parliamentary elections boosted fears of dynastic succession being used in Kyrgyzstan as well, and may have contributed to the anti-Akayev climate that led to his overthrow.

[91] Such territories and resulting military conflicts have so far been: Civil wars unrelated to separatist movements have occurred twice in the region: Since 2003, a number of (largely) peaceful "colour revolutions" have happened in some post-Soviet states after disputed elections, with popular protests bringing into power the former opposition.

"[108] The Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) plus Azerbaijan in the Southern Caucasus are Muslim, except for their dwindling Russian and other European minorities.

[111] The Northern countries of Central Europe, including Poland, East Germany and Czechoslovakia formed what is referred to as the "black triangle" due to their heavy use of brown coal for energy.

[109] As general unrest grew in the final years of the Soviet Union, the public began to demand environmental reform as part of their resistance to Communism.

[109] Critics of the Green Front opposed their effects on the chemical industry and claimed that it led to reduced commercial product availability of items such as soap, which was in very short supply in the late 1980s, and restricted access to pharmaceutical goods.

[109] It was expected that the transition to post-Soviet society would bring about environmental change from both democratic governments and NGOs, but the dissolution of the Soviet Union had both positive and negative effects on the environment.

[117] Ukraine is made up of a diverse landscape consisting of plains, temperate forest and mountains, five densely populated cities, and agricultural land that makes up 70% of the country.

Since independence, Ukraine has experienced a decrease in agricultural and industrial productivity and an increase in diseases, birth abnormalities and child mortality, claimed to have been caused at least in part from the Chernobyl disaster and from polluted water and air.

[109] Proper water resource management is a significant environmental concern in the post-Soviet nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and the Karakalpakstan region, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

[119]Following the fall of the Soviet Union, the newly independent states kept their Soviet-era internal administrative structure but were unpracticed in cross-national natural resource management.

[120] During this time, environmental monitoring and regulation were controlled at the local level, but the Baltic states had little influence over the state-managed industrial activities in their area.

[clarification needed][132] A 2009 Pew Research Center poll showed that 62% of Ukrainians felt that their lives were worse off after 1989, when free markets were made dominant.