Dissolution of the Soviet Union

Formal dissolution of the USSR on 26 December 1991, ending the world's largest socialist state after economic stagnation, ethnic nationalism, the failed August 1991 coup and the Belovezha Accords of 8 December, in which the leaders of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine declared the Union no longer existed. On 25 December Mikhail Gorbachev resigned and transferred presidential powers, including nuclear launch codes, to Russian president Boris Yeltsin; Russia became the recognized successor state. The dissolution marked the culmination of the Revolutions of 1989 and the end of the Cold War.