The collapse of the Soviet Union took place in which year?

The Soviet Union formally ended in 1991: on December 25, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as president, and on December 26 the Supreme Soviet declared the USSR dissolved; the red flag was lowered over the Kremlin. Earlier that month, Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus signed the Belavezha Accords, creating the CIS and confirming the breakup. Context: years of economic strain, Gorbachev’s perestroika and glasnost, nationalist movements, and the failed August 1991 coup accelerated the collapse. Not 1990 (the USSR still existed) and not 1992 (that’s the post-Soviet transition); 1891 is unrelated. Memory tip: ’91—one union splits into many “ones.”