The CIS is a huge area and has hundreds of flights everyday. In the past safety has been questionable.

You can't really generalise the whole area. On international flights into Europe and such they have to be up on safety. Like if Aeroflot were unsafe, they wouldn't be allowed to operate flights to say London. Internal flights are a different matter. But there are LOTS of internal flights. I've been on one. It was alright. Let's just say I've never seen bagage stored on empty rows of seats before.