FILE - This Wednesday, Sept. 4, 1991 file photo shows Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev talking before the Congress of People's Deputies during a debate on his proposal to transform the Soviet Union into a confederation of sovereign states in Moscow. Former Belarusian leader Stanislav Shushkevich says a historic document that proclaimed the death of the Soviet Union is missing from archives. Officials with Belarus' government and the Russia-dominated alliance of ex-Soviet nations confirmed late Wednesday Feb. 6, 2013, they only have copies. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)
February 07, 2013 - 1:01 AM
MINSK, Belarus - Former Belarusian leader Stanislav Shushkevich says a historic document that pronounced the death of the U.S.S.R. is missing from archives.
Shushkevich discovered the disappearance of the original document while working on his memoirs. Officials with Belarus' government and Russia-dominated alliance of ex-Soviet nations confirmed Wednesday they only have copies.
The document's disappearance reflects the chaos that surrounded the Soviet demise.
On Dec. 8, 1991, Shushkevich hosted Russia's President Boris Yeltsin and Ukraine's President Leonid Kravchuk for secret talks at a government hunting lodge near Viskuli in the Belovezha Forest. The trio signed a deal declaring that "the U.S.S.R. has seized to exist as a subject of international law and geopolitical reality," defeating Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's attempts to hold the country together and forcing him to resign on Christmas Day.
News from © The Associated Press, 2013