The Soviet Union is formally dissolved
Gorbachev resigned as president on 25 December and the Soviet flag was lowered over the Kremlin; on 26 December the upper chamber of the Supreme Soviet adopted a declaration recognising that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist. Fifteen successor states emerged, four of them with strategic nuclear weapons on their territory. The confrontation ended without either side's forces having fired on the other in forty-five years, and the arsenals, the alliance, the treaties and the inspection regimes built to manage it all outlived it.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- Warsaw Treaty Organization · organisation · Central and Eastern Europe · not located
- Mikhail Gorbachev · person · Soviet Union · not located
- Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons · treaty · not located
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent.
Declaration of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on the dissolution of the USSR
Supports the formal date of dissolution and the fact that it was effected by a declaration of the upper chamber the day after Gorbachev's resignation. V55 verification basis: NOT consulted. The reference number 142-N is the number under which the declaration is commonly cited and is given here as an identifier rather than as a document verified in this session; a curator should confirm it before it is shown to readers.
Supreme Soviet of the USSR · 1991-12-26 · Partly verified
Declaration of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, 26 December 1991, commonly cited as Declaration No. 142-N
Recorded on Warsaw Treaty Organization
- The Warsaw Treaty is signed
- The Partial Test Ban Treaty is signed in Moscow
- The Non-Proliferation Treaty opens for signature
- Warsaw Pact forces invade Czechoslovakia
- The Non-Proliferation Treaty enters into force
- The Soviet intervention in Afghanistan
- The Reykjavik summit
- The INF Treaty is signed in Washington
- The Berlin Wall opens
- The Warsaw Treaty Organization dissolves itself
- START I is signed in Moscow
- The attempted coup against Gorbachev
- The Belavezha accords
- The Soviet Union is formally dissolved
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.
- The Belavezha accords · 1991-12-08
- The attempted coup against Gorbachev · 1991-08-19 – 1991-08-21
- START I is signed in Moscow · 1991-07-31
- The Warsaw Treaty Organization dissolves itself · 1991
- The Berlin Wall opens · 1989-11-09
- The INF Treaty is signed in Washington · 1987-12-08
- The Reykjavik summit · 1986-10-11 – 1986-10-12
- The Soviet intervention in Afghanistan · 1979-12 – 1989-02-15