December 25, 1991 · Global Theater
December 25, 1991
On Christmas Day 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev appeared on Soviet television to announce his resignation as President of the USSR. The Soviet flag was lowered over the Kremlin for the last time and replaced by the Russian tricolor. Fourteen Soviet republics had already declared independence; the Commonwealth of Independent States replaced the USSR as a loose successor. The largest country on Earth, the world's second superpower, the state that had survived Hitler and the Great Patriotic War, dissolved — peacefully, almost quietly — after 74 years of existence.
Commanders