The Break-Up of the Soviet Union

In December 1991 the leaders of three Soviet Republics - Russia, Ukraine and Belorussia - signed a treaty dissolving the USSR. They did it 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. Dina Newman has spoken to the former President of Belorussia, Stanislav Shushkevich, and the former President of Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk, who signed that historic document alongside Boris Yeltsin.

Photo: the leader of Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk, the leader of Belorussia, Stanislav Shushkevich and the leader of Russia, Boris Yeltsin at the signing ceremony. Credit: AP