Timeline - 1990 - 1999

Throughout the 1990s, Israel and the United States devoted vast resources to weakening the nuclear links between Russia and Iran and applied enormous diplomatic pressure on Russia to cut off the relationship.

Ronen Bergman

1990

31st January - The first McDonald's in Russia (Moscow) opened. It closed in 2022 following the invasion of Ukraine.
11th March - Lithuania became independent.
29th May - Boris Yeltsin was elected as president of Russia.
2nd August - Iraq invaded Kuwait, beginning the First Gulf War.
3rd October - Germany was reunified.
29th November - John Major (Conservative) became UK Prime Minister.

1991

13th January - Soviet troops entered the Lithuanian city of Vilnius to restore the pro-Moscow government. Clashes between Soviet troops and unarmed Lithuanian demonstrators claimed 14 lives.
UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar met with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein
14th January - Valentin Pavlov become the new premier of USSR
28th February - The First Gulf War ended.
3rd March - Citizens in Estonia and Latvia voted overwhelmingly in favour of independence from the Soviet Union.
17th March - More than three-quarters of citizens in nine Soviet republics voted in favour of maintaining the Soviet Union.
31st March - Albania held its first multi-party elections.
In an independence referendum: Georgia voted for independence from the Soviet Union.
12th June - Boris Yeltsin was elected president of Russia.
31st July - US president George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) in Moscow.
19th August - Communists launched a coup attempt in USSR, arresting Gorbachev. The coup collapsed after two days, due to popular opposition whipped up by Russian president Boris Yeltsin.
24th August - Ukraine declared its independence from the Soviet Union. Over the following week, Belarus, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan also declared independence and left the USSR.
30th September - The majority of civilian members of the Royal Observer Corps were stood down.
8th December - Russia and 11 other Soviet bloc nations formed the Commonwealth of Independent States.
25th December - US President George H. W. Bush, after receiving a phone call from Boris Yeltsin, delivered a Christmas Day speech acknowledging the end of the Cold War.
Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as President of the USSR. The hammer and sickle was lowered for the last time over the Kremlin.
26th December - The Council of Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR recognised the dissolution of the Soviet Union and decided to dissolve itself.
31st December - All Soviet institutions ceased operations.

1992

1st January - The USSR was re-named the Russian Federation.
2nd January - Russian President Boris Yeltsin ended retail prices control in Russia some prices increased 300 - 500%. This was the end of one of the Cold War cornerstones, command economy.
6th January - Zviad Gamsakhurdia President of Georgia fled due to a military coup.
20th January - John Major agreed an arms control deal with Russian President Boris Yeltsin in London.
26th January - Boris Yeltsin announced that Russia would stop targeting US cities with nuclear weapons. George H.W. Bush announced that the West would reciprocate.
1st February - George H.W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin met at Camp David and announced that the Cold War was over.
9th March - The Peoples Republic of China ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
16th March - Boris Yeltsin announced the creation of a Russian army.

1993

1st January - Czechoslovakia ceased to exist as the Czech Republic and Slovakia separated in the Velvet Divorce

1994

1995

31st December - The remaining volunteer members of the Royal Observer Corps were stood down.

1996

31st March - The ROC Headquarters were stood down and remaining officers re-deployed.