March 11, 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev becomes the general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).
February 25–March 6, 1986 First attempt at a thorough reexamination of the foreign and domestic policies of the USSR, undertaken by Gorbachev at the Twenty-Seventh Congress of the CPSU. Humanitarian problems and human rights included among the key problems of international security.
April 26, 1986 Accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
May 15, 1988–February 15, 1989 Withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan.
June 28–July 1, 1988 Nineteenth Party Conference of the CPSU adopts a resolution to transfer supreme state power to a Congress of People’s Deputies of the USSR.
October 1, 1988 Gorbachev becomes chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
1988–91 “Parade of sovereignties”—anti-constitutional declarations asserting the superiority of laws of the constituent republics of the USSR over the laws of the USSR itself.
January 15, 1989 Adoption of the final document of the Vienna meeting of members of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, including important obligations in the realm of human rights essential for democratic reforms in the USSR. By a decision of the Politburo of the CPSU, the Vienna document was put into effect throughout the territories of the USSR and its implementation made mandatory for all ministries and departments.
March 26–May 21, 1989 Elections for people’s deputies of the USSR (the first free elections in the USSR).
May 25, 1989 Convening of the First Congress of People’s Deputies of the USSR; Gorbachev elected chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (parliament).
1989–91 Creation of an “underground” of Soviet special services by means of creating secret associations of militarized detachments from former or active employees of the special and militarized services of Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States; transfer of funds from the CPSU to trusted persons.
February 26–March 12, 1989 Visit of American psychiatrists to the USSR, one of the key events in the liquidation of punitive psychiatry in the USSR.
March 4, 1990 Election of people’s deputies of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR).
March 14, 1990 Adoption of “On the Establishment of the Presidency of the USSR and Introduction of Changes and Addenda to the Constitution of the USSR,” a law that abolishes the CPSU’s monopoly on power.
March 15, 1990 At the Third Extraordinary Congress of People’s Deputies of the USSR, Gorbachev is elected president of the USSR.
May 29, 1990 Congress of People’s Deputies of the RSFSR convenes and chooses Boris Yeltsin as the chairman of the Supreme Soviet.
June 12, 1990 The First Congress of People’s Deputies of the RSFSR adopts a resolution declaring the RSFSR a sovereign state.
October 1, 1990 The USSR passes a law on freedom of conscience and of religious organizations.
May 20, 1991 Supreme Soviet of USSR adopts a law “On Procedures for Citizens of the USSR Regarding Departure from and Entry into the USSR.”
June 12, 1991 Yeltsin is elected president of Russia.
1990–91 Parade of sovereignties of subjects of the RSFSR.
August 18–21, 1991 Attempted coup d’état led by the KGB and the reactionary wing of the CPSU.
December 8, 1991 Signing of the Belovezh Accords by the head of the RSFSR (Yeltsin), Byelorussia (S. Shushkevich), and Ukraine (L. Kravchuk) on terminating the existence of the USSR.
September 21–October 4, 1993 President Yeltsin signs Decree No. 1400, dissolving the Congress of People’s Deputies and the Supreme Soviet of Russia, leading to armed clashes and the shelling of the parliament building by tanks. Estimates suggest that 300–400 people were killed.
December 2, 1994 Operation Muzzle in the Snow carried out by the presidential security service, dissatisfied with Channel One’s television coverage of the First Chechen War, against NTV owner Vladimir Gusinskii; beginning of the establishment of broad control over the mass media.
December 11, 1994 President Yeltsin signs Decree No. 2169; and military operations in Chechnya by units of the Ministry of Defense and domestic troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs begins.
July 3, 1996 Yeltsin, although very unpopular, is reelected to a second term as president in a ruthlessly rigged election.
August 31, 1996 Alexander Lebed, secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, and Aslan Maskhadov, chief of staff of Chechnya, sign the Khasavyurt armistice agreement. Russian forces are fully withdrawn from Chechnya, but a decision on the status of the republic is put off until December 31, 2001.
August 17, 1998 A technical default on basic types of government debts is declared; rejection of maintaining a stable ruble-dollar exchange rate, artificially inflated by massive intervention by the Central Bank of Russia.
September 11, 1998 The State Duma confirms Yevgeny Primakov as prime minister of Russia; the special services commence the decisive seizure of key posts throughout the state apparatus of Russia.
August 9, 1999 On the same day, Vladimir Putin is appointed first deputy chairman and acting chairman of the government. President Yeltsin proclaims Putin, having headed the FSB since 1998 and served as the prime minister for the previous few days, as his successor.
September 4–16, 1999 A series of explosions occurs in apartment houses, almost certainly carried out by the regime, in Buinaksk, Moscow and Volgodonsk; 307 people are killed.
September 23, 1999 Russian troops begin massive bombardment of Grozny and its environs, starting the Second Chechen War.
December 31, 1999 President Yeltsin announces his early retirement and appoints Putin acting president of Russia.
Night of April 13–14, 2001 Concluding the political conflict between the Kremlin and NTV, due in particular to the war in Chechnya and the telecommunication company’s refusal to support pro-Kremlin candidates in the parliamentary elections of 1999, Gazprom representatives replaced the security guards at NTV headquarters and annulled the journalists’ passes; beginning of wholesale liquidation of freedom of the media.
October 25, 2003 Arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was later sentenced to nine years of forced labor. This marks the start of complete executive power and control over all the activities of large-scale Russian businesses.
March 2, 2008 Dmitry Medvedev is chosen as president of Russia. Putin becomes prime minister.
August 8–12, 2008 Russia’s war against Georgia results in Georgia completely losing control over the territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
December 4, 2011–March 4, 2012 Protest movement, known as the “Snow Revolution,” against the official results of elections to the Sixth State Duma and election of Putin to a third term.
March 4, 2012 In the first round, having secured 63.6 percent of the vote according to official figures, Putin is elected to a third presidential term.
February 2014 Russia annexes Crimea.
April 2014 The beginning of armed conflict in eastern Ukraine to link it to Russia, at a minimum, utilizing armed support from the Kremlin; establishment of the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic, separatist enclaves in eastern Ukraine.
July 17, 2014 A Russian-made Buk surface-to-air missile, which is not in the arsenal of the Ukrainian armed forces, brings down Malaysian Airlines flight MH 17, a Boeing 777, on a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur over the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine. Fifteen crew members and 283 passengers die.
March 2014 The United States, the EU, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as a number of international organizations, including the European Commission, NATO, the European Council, and others, introduce the first set of sanctions after Russian aggression against Ukraine. Russia adopts countermeasures. Beginning of the collapse of the Russian economy.
September 2015 Responding to a request from Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, whom the Kremlin has supported from the start of the conflict in Syria, the Federation Council approves sending Russian military forces to Syria in the struggle against terrorism. Russia begins air strikes in Syria.