Collapse · 1991

Dissolution of the Soviet Union

Moscow Kremlin, Russia

Economic stagnation, the burden of the arms race and foreign wars, nationalist movements in the union republics and the destabilising effects of Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms (glasnost and perestroika) eroded Soviet power. On 8 December 1991 the leaders of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine declared in the Belovezha Accords that the Soviet Union no longer existed; Gorbachev resigned on 25 December, and on 26 December 1991 the USSR was formally dissolved.

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