The demise of the Soviet Union
How the leaders of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus plotted to break up the USSR in 1991.
Witness History · BBC World Service
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Show Notes
In December 1991 the leaders of three Soviet Republics - Russia, Ukraine and Belarus - signed a treaty dissolving the USSR. They did so without asking the other republics, and against the wishes of the USSR's overall President Mikhail Gorbachev. By the end of the year, Gorbachev had resigned and the Soviet Union was no more. In 2016, Dina Newman spoke to the former President of Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk, and former President of Belarus, Stanislav Shushkevich, who signed that historic document alongside Boris Yeltsin.
PHOTO: The breakaway leaders signing the treaty the dissolved the Soviet Union (Getty Images)