The Ukraine Impasse

摘要

On 7 December 1991, the leaders of the Soviet republics of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia met at a hunting lodge in Europe's last primeval forest, Belavezhskaya Pushcha (Belavezha Woods), near what is today the Belarus-Poland border. In August, the failed coup attempt against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev had significantly strengthened the hand of the republics in their push for greater autonomy. Stanislav Shushkevich, the Belarusian leader, had invited Boris Yeltsin and Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk to Belavezha both to find a mutually acceptable formula for the Soviet Union's dissolution and to agree on a structure to govern relations among the republics in their newfound independence.