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 , amid a catastrophic political crisis, with several republics already departing the Union and Gorbachev continuing 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 and what was left of the Soviet parliament voted to dissolve the union the following day. The process began with growing unrest in the country's various constituent national republics developing into an incessant political and legislative conflict between them and the central government. Estonia was the first Soviet republic to declare state sovereignty inside the Union on 16 November Lithuania was the first republic to declare full independence restored from the Soviet Union by the Act of 11 March with its Baltic neighbors and the Southern Caucasus republic of Georgia joining it over the next two months.
During the failed August coup , communist hardliners and military elites attempted to overthrow Gorbachev and stop the failing reforms. However, the turmoil led to the central government in Moscow losing influence, ultimately resulting in many republics proclaiming independence in the following days and months. The secession of the Baltic states was recognized in September Russia, as by far the largest and most populous republic, became the USSR's de facto successor state.
On 25 December, Gorbachev resigned and turned over his presidential powers β including control of the nuclear launch codes β to Yeltsin, who was now the first president of the Russian Federation. That evening, the Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin for the last time and replaced with the Russian tricolor flag.
On the other hand, the Baltic states and all of the other former Warsaw Pact states became part of the European Union EU and joined NATO , while some of the other former Soviet republics like Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova have been publicly expressing interest in following the same path since the s, despite Russian attempts to persuade them otherwise.
