Commonwealth of Independent States
The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) is a regional intergovernmental organization in Eurasia. It was formed following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. It covers an area of 20,368,759 km2 (7,864,422 sq mi) and has an estimated population of 239,796,010. The CIS encourages cooperation in economic, political, and military affairs and has certain powers relating to the coordination of trade, finance, lawmaking, and security, including cross-border crime prevention.
Signing of the Belovezh Accords, 8 December 1991
The 20–22 June 2000 CIS Summit
Representatives of Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and other states at the 20–22 June 2000 CIS Summit in Moscow
Meeting of CIS leaders in Bishkek, 2008
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was dissolved on 26 December 1991 by Declaration № 142-Н of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, formally establishing the dissolution of the Soviet Union as a sovereign state and subject of international law. It also brought an end to the Soviet Union's federal government and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev's effort to reform the Soviet political and economic system in an attempt to stop a period of political stalemate and economic backslide. The Soviet Union had experienced internal stagnation and ethnic separatism. Although highly centralized until its final years, the country was made up of 15 top-level republics that served as the homelands for different ethnicities. By late 1991, amid a catastrophic political crisis, with several republics already departing the Union and the waning of centralized power, the leaders of three of its founding members, the Russian, Belorussian, and Ukrainian SSRs, declared that the Soviet Union no longer existed. Eight more republics joined their declaration shortly thereafter. Gorbachev resigned on 25 December 1991 and what was left of the Soviet parliament voted to end itself.
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) in 1987
Environmental concerns over the Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant drove initial demonstrations in Yerevan.
Anti-Soviet rally of about 250,000 in Lithuania, whose Sąjūdis movement helped restore independence
Andrei Sakharov, formerly exiled to Gorky, was elected to the Congress of People's Deputies in March 1989.