Map of the CIS
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The final round of the Soviet Union collapse took place following the Ukrainian popular referendum on December 1, 1991, wherein 90% of voters opted for independence. The leaders of Slavic republics agreed to meet for a discussion of possible forms of relationship, alternative to Gorbachev's struggle for a union.
On December 8, 1991, the leaders of the Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian republics met in Belavezhskaya Pushcha and signed the Belavezha Accords declaring the Soviet Union dissolved and replacing it with the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Gorbachev described this as an unconstitutional coup, but it soon became clear that the development could not be halted.
On December 12, 1991, Russia's secession from the Union was sealed, with the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR formally ratifying the Belavezha Accords and denouncing the 1922 Treaty on the creation of the Soviet Union.
On December 17, 1991, alongside 28 European countries, the European Community, and four non-European countries, twelve of the fifteen soviet republics signed the European Energy Charter in the Hague as sovereign states.[15]
Five double-headed Russian coat-of-arms eagles (below) substituting the former state emblem of the Soviet Union and the “CCCP” letters (above) in the facade of the Grand Kremlin Palace after the dissolution of the USSR
Doubts remained over the authority of the Belavezha Accords to affect the dissolution of the Soviet Union, since they were signed by only five of the Soviet Republics. However, on December 21, 1991, representatives of all member republics except Georgia signed theAlma-Ata Protocol, in which they confirmed the dissolution of the Union. That same day, all former-Soviet republics agreed to join the CIS, with the exception of the three Baltic States and Georgia. The documents signed at Alma-Ata also addressed several issues raised by the Union's extinction. Notably, Russia was authorized to assume the role of the USSR in the United Nations, which meant inheriting its permanent membership on the Security Council. The Soviet Ambassador to the UN delivered to the Secretary General a letter by Russia's president, Boris Yeltsin, dated December 24, 1991, informing him that, in virtue of that agreement, Russia was the successor state to the USSR for the purposes of UN membership. After being circulated among the other UN member states with no objection raised, the statement was declared accepted on December 31.
On December 25, 1991, Gorbachev resigned as president of the USSR, declaring the office extinct and ceding all the powers still vested in it to the president of Russia: Yeltsin. On the night of that same day, the Soviet flag was lowered for the last time over the Kremlin. Finally, a day later on December 26, 1991, the Council of Republics (a chamber) of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR recognized the dissolution of the Soviet Union and dissolved itself (another chamber of the Supreme Soviet had been unable to work during some months before this, due to absence of a quorum). By December 31, 1991, all official Soviet institutions had ceased operations, as individual republics assumed the central government's role.
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