Countdown to fall of USSR

Twenty-five years ago, the Soviet Union split apart and the Cold War as
the world then knew it came to an end. The collapse was set in motion
six years earlier by the sweeping reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev

1985: New Soviet Communist Party (CPSU) leader Mikhail Gorbachev calls for perestroika (economic restructuring) and glasnost (political openness)

1988: Stirrings of independence in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia

1989: Boris Yeltsin elected to parliament set up under Gorbachev’s
reforms. Soviet bloc crumbles as Berlin Wall falls

1990-91: Gorbachev calls for multi-party politics – but pro-independence
demonstrations in Azerbaijan and Lithuania are violently suppressed

Jun 1991: Yeltsin elected president of Russian Federation

Aug 19: Gorbachev overthrown in coup by Communist hardliners while
at his holiday home in Crimea. Plotters aim to prevent signing
of new treaty giving republics greater freedom

Aug 19: Boris Yeltsin calls for general strike following coup

Aug 21: Coup collapses amid massive demonstrations, spearheaded by Yeltsin

Aug 22: Gorbachev freed from house arrest – returns to Moscow but is humiliated in Russian parliament by Yeltsin, who orders that Soviet
Communist Party end its activities on Russian soil

Aug 23: Gorbachev resigns as General Secretary of CPSU

Sep 6: Independence of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia recognized

Dec 8: Leaders of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine meet to disband Soviet Union and form Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)

Dec 25: Gorbachev steps down as Soviet president – USSR officially ceases
to exist

Freedom Monument, Riga, Latvia

RUSSIA Moscow 1,000km 620 miles

SOVIET REPUBLICS Date independence declared, 1991

Feb / Apr: Lithuania (1), Georgia (2)

Aug 20-22: Estonia (3), Latvia (4)

Aug 24-31: Ukraine (5), Belarus (6), Moldova (7), Azerbaijan (8),
Kyrgyzstan (9)

Sep: Uzbekistan (10), Tajikistan (11), Armenia (12)

Oct: Turkmenistan (13)

Dec: Kazakhstan (14)

Baltic States do not join CIS. Ukraine has not ratified charter,
Turkmenistan associate member only since 2005, Georgia quits in 2008 after South Ossetia war

Pictures: Associated Press, Getty Images