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Shushkevich recounts how Soviet Union was dissolved

The Soviet Union could have been hit by a bloody civil war if it had not been dissolved by the agreement signed by the leaders of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha natural reserve on December 8, 1991, Belarus' first formal head of state, Stanislaw Shushkevich, said in an interview with BelaPAN.

Dr. Shushkevich was among the three politicians who put pen to paper on the agreement during talks in a forest government residence close to the Polish border.

"That civil war could have been the world's biggest and become a treat to the entire humankind," Dr. Shushkevich said, referring to findings by international think tanks.

"And back then I was surprised that [then US President] Bush was against the breakup of the Soviet Union and that so were Mitterrand, Thatcher and Major. All of them opposed the breakup of the Soviet Union, separatism. Now I understand why. They thought that we were fools who would divide the country and start a fight."

"I think we had the courage and wits to divide the country and avoid a fight and bloodshed," Dr. Shushkevich said.

He said that the talks had been originally organized in Belovezhskaya Pushcha in an attempt to talk Russia into delivering oil and gas to Belarus and Ukraine at a lower price.

"We - Fokin, Kravchuk, Kebich and me - were going to plead with Russia to supply our countries with hydrocarbons in the winter of 1991/1992 not on market conditions as we would fail to buy them on market conditions. The original purpose of the talks was to ensure that we don't get frozen in the winter," the politician revealed.

According to Dr. Shushkevich, it was Gennady Burbulis, then Russia's secretary of state, who proposed a treaty that would dissolve the Soviet Union and create the Commonwealth of Independent States.