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Belavezha Accords

Agreement establishing the Commonwealth of Independent States
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Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk (second from left seated), Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Belarus Stanislav Shushkevich (third from left seated) and Russian President Boris Yeltsin (second from right seated) during the signing ceremony at Viskuly Government House in the Belarusian Belovezhskaya Pushcha National Park, 8 December 1991
Type Treaty establishing a loose regional organisation
Signed 8 December 1991
Location Białowieża Forest (de facto)
Minsk, Belarus (de jure)
Effective 12 December 1991
Signatories Russia Boris Yeltsin
Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk
 Belarus Stanislav Shushkevich
Depositary Minsk, Belarus

The Belavezha Accords (Russian: Беловежские соглашения, Belarusian: Белавежскае пагадненне, Ukrainian: Біловезькі угоди) is the agreement that declared the Soviet Union effectively dissolved and established the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in its place. It was signed at the state dacha near Viskuli in Belovezhskaya Pushcha on December 8, 1991, by the leaders of three of the four republics-signatories of the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR -- Russian President Boris Yeltsin, Ukrainian president Leonid Kravchuk and Belarusian parliament chairman Stanislav Shushkevich.

The name is variously transliterated as Belavezh Accords, Belovezh Accords, Belovezha Accords, Belavezha Agreement, Belovezhskaya Accord, Belaya Vezha Accord, etc.

While doubts remained over the authority of the leaders of three of the 12 remaining republics (the three Baltic republics had seceded in August) to dissolve the Union, according to Article 72 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution, Soviet republics had the right to secede freely from the Union. On December 12, 1991 the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR ratified the accords on behalf of Russia and at the same time denounced the 1922 Treaty on the Creation of the Soviet Union, effectively seceding from the USSR.


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