Document signalling end of Soviet Union missing

A historically important document proclaiming the end of the Soviet Union is missing from the archives according to former Belarusian leader Stanislav Shushkevich.

• The missing document was signed by Boris Yeltsin, Leonid Kravchuk and Stanislav Shushkevich

• It signalled the end of the Soviet Union

• The disappearance shows the confusion surrounding the break up of the Soviet Union

Shushkevich had been working on his memoirs, when he found the item to be missing. Belarus government official and the alliance of ex-Soviet nations confirmed last night that they only have copies of the original document.

The agreement, signed on 8 December 1991, was signed by Shushkevich, Russia’s President Boris Yeltsin and the Ukraine leader Leonid Kravchuk. The document declared that “the U.S.S.R. has ceased to exist as a subject of international law and geopolitical reality.”

The head of the archive department of the Commonwealth of Independent States, Vasily Ostreiko said he didn’t know where the original document was.