Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as the Soviet Union dissolved

On December 25, 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as president of the Soviet Union and handed his powers — including control of the nuclear codes — to Boris Yeltsin, president of the Russian Federation. That evening the Soviet hammer-and-sickle flag was lowered over the Kremlin for the last time and replaced by the Russian tricolor.

The collapse had been building for weeks. In early December, Yeltsin and the leaders of Ukraine and Belarus had agreed to form the Commonwealth of Independent States, effectively writing the union’s obituary. Gorbachev’s own reforms — glasnost and perestroika — had loosened controls that long-suppressed nationalisms then tore apart.

The following day, December 26, 1991, the Soviet Union formally ceased to exist, ending a state that had stood for nearly seventy years and dominated half of Europe. A superpower expired not with a war but with a signature and a flag quietly coming down.