End of the USSR

At 1932 hours on the evening of 25 December 1991, the flag of the Soviet Union was lowered from the Kremlin and replaced with the national flag of Russia. It was also the day that the USSR's eighth and last president, Mikhail Gorbachev, resigned, declared his office defunct and handed over power to a Russian President - Boris Yeltsin. The dissolution of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), independence of the Soviet Republics and the creation of the Commonwelath of Independent States was declared by the Supreme Soviet's Declaration 142-H and the dissolution of the USSR came into effect on 26 December 1991.