cross-posted from: https://exploding-heads.com/post/50594

Twenty-five years ago this month, Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova formed the GUAM consultative forum to counter Russian efforts to keep them within Moscow’s orbit via the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and to promote their own integration with the democratic West.

Putin’s war in Ukraine has done even more to boost the importance of GUAM for its members; increase the interest of others, especially Turkey; and alarm Moscow with the prospect that a group mostly devoted to democratization and economic cooperation will now take on a security dimension as well.