Dissolution of the Soviet Union

On December 25, 1991, the Soviet hammer and sickle flag lowered for the last time over the Kremlin, thereafter replaced by the Russian tricolor.

The unsuccessful August 1991 coup against Gorbachev sealed the fate of the Soviet Union.

Gorbachev’s decision to allow elections with a multi-party system and create a presidency for the Soviet Union began a slow process of democratization that eventually destabilized Communist control and contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In early December, Yeltsin and the leaders of Ukraine and Belarus met in Brest to form the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), effectively declaring the demise of the Soviet Union.

Dear compatriots, fellow citizens, as a result of the newly formed situation, creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States, I cease my activities in the post of the U.S.S.R. president.

The August coup brought the general crisis to its ultimate limit. The most damaging thing about this crisis is the breakup of the statehood.

And today I am worried by our people’s loss of the citizenship of a great country. The consequences may turn out to be very hard for everyone.

On the evening of December 25, after speaking to Gorbachev on the telephone, Bush addressed the nation from the Oval Office to announce that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist.

And even now, months after the failed coup that doomed a failed system, I'm not sure we've absorbed the full impact, the full import of what happened.

I mean to speak this evening of the changes that can take place in our country, now that we can stop making the sacrifices we had to make when we had an avowed enemy that was a superpower.

arguing that the Soviet Union had essentially collapsed following the failed hard-line coup against Gorbachev in August 1991

The nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl 20 years ago this month, even more than my launch of perestroika, was perhaps the main cause of the Soviet Union’s collapse five years later.

The timeline of the collapse of the Soviet Union can be traced to September 13, 1985. On this date, Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, the minister of oil of Saudi Arabia, declared that the monarchy had decided to alter its oil policy radically.

As a result, the Soviet Union lost approximately $20 billion per year, money without which the country simply could not survive.

the mine laid at the initial stage to destroy state immunity to the disease of nationalism was ticking. As I have already said, the mine was the right of secession from the Soviet Union.

The disintegration of our united country was brought about by the historic, strategic mistakes on the part of the Bolshevik leaders and the CPSU leadership, mistakes committed at different times in state-building and in economic and ethnic policies.

Already weakened by pressure from Russian President Boris Yeltsin and an abortive coup, Gorbachëv and his visions for a revitalized Soviet confederation were doomed by the decisive results of a December 1991 Ukrainian referendum in favor of independence.

Plokhy presents a bold new interpretation of the Soviet Union’s final months and argues that the key to the Soviet collapse was the inability of the two largest Soviet republics, Russia and Ukraine, to agree on the continuing existence of a unified state.

On 8 December 1991, the presidents of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus agreed on the dissolution of the USSR and the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States in its place.

By signing the Belavezha Accords in the Russian president's hand and ratifying them in the Russian parliament, Russia has for the first time since 1794 recognized the independence of its adjacent colony Belarus.

I understood Ukraine could never be really independent if the USSR still existed

The Soviet Union itself is no more. This is a victory for democracy and freedom. It's a victory for the moral force of our values. Every American can take pride in this victory

In addition to this, we have endured ten years of a special period, after the collapse of the socialist camp and disintegration of the Soviet Union left us devoid of markets and sources of supplies.

Let us recall how the Soviet empire fell, leaving us with confusion and emotional turmoil, a ruined economy and politics.

Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century. As for the Russian nation, it became a genuine drama. Tens of millions of our co-citizens and compatriots found themselves outside Russian territory.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin has described the collapse of the Soviet Union as "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe" of the 20th century.