The demise of the Soviet Union
The Presidents of the Soviet Republics of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus met and signed a treaty which ended 70 years of Soviet communism. Hear from two of those leaders.
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)
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- Mon 7 Feb 202208:50GMTBBC World Service
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