Burc Eruygur
26 March 2026•Update: 26 March 2026
ISTANBUL
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on Thursday that Kyiv has terminated 116 agreements with Russia and Belarus, as well as with the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
In a statement posted on the US social media platform Facebook, Sybiha expressed belief that Ukraine's legal and treaty framework “must reflect the realities of war and the new security architecture on the European continent.”
Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers took the step to terminate 116 international agreements on Wednesday, which the country’s government concluded within the CIS framework, as well as with Russia and Belarus, he said.
“Thanks to this resolution, we are terminating 25 agreements, denouncing 3, and withdrawing from 88 international treaties. Of these, 5 are with Russia, 23 with Belarus, 87 within the CIS framework, and one is a trilateral agreement between Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus,” he added.
Sybiha noted that they are effectively in the process of completing the “main stage” of aligning Ukraine’s legal framework of bilateral and multilateral relations with Russia and Belarus, and within the CIS, to the “realities of war” and Kyiv’s role in the new security architecture of Europe.
"This is my principled position as minister -- to eliminate everything that could weaken Ukraine, to cut off everything that once connected us with the aggressor state, and to build a serious, strategic, long-term line of defense for the free world along Ukraine's eastern border, or even beyond it,” he added.
The CIS was established in 1991 following the dissolution of the Soviet Union to promote cooperation in economic, political, and security affairs.
Its full members are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, while Turkmenistan holds associate membership. Moldova suspended its participation in CIS meetings in 2022.
Although Ukraine is a founding state of the CIS, it has never ratified the organization’s charter, thus never being a full member. Kyiv ended its participation in CIS statutory bodies in 2018.
