<Tr> <Td> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> </Td> </Tr> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> <P> The dissolution of the Soviet Union occurred on December 26, 1991, officially granting self - governing independence to the Republics of the Soviet Union . It was a result of the declaration number 142 - Н of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union . The declaration acknowledged the independence of the former Soviet republics and created the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), although five of the signatories ratified it much later or did not do so at all . On the previous day, 25 December 1991, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, the eighth and final leader of the Soviet Union, resigned, declared his office extinct, and handed over its powers--including control of the Soviet nuclear missile launching codes--to Russian President Boris Yeltsin . That evening at 7: 32 p.m., the Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin for the last time and replaced with the pre-revolutionary Russian flag . </P> <P> Previously, from August to December, all the individual republics, including Russia itself, had either seceded from the union or at the very least denounced the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR . The week before formal dissolution, 11 republics signed the Alma - Ata Protocol formally establishing the CIS and declaring that the USSR had ceased to exist . Both the Revolutions of 1989 and the dissolution of the USSR also marked the end of the Cold War . </P>

What was the fall of the soviet union
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