Act of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine
Ukraine's parliament declares independence and schedules a referendum
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Original prompt & settings (JSON) ↗The independence Act passed 346–1, in a legislature elected while Ukraine was still a Soviet republic.
24 August 1991: 346 to 1
At an extraordinary session in Kyiv on 24 August 1991, the Ukrainian SSR's Supreme Soviet adopted the Act of Declaration of Independence — 346 votes for, one against — creating an independent state named Ukraine. The Act itself invoked the mortal danger revealed by the Moscow coup that had collapsed three days earlier.
The short text carried immediate legal force: Ukraine's territory was declared indivisible and inviolable, and Ukrainian constitutional and legislative acts became the only law in force within the republic.
More than a proclamation
The same sitting scheduled a republican referendum for 1 December 1991 to confirm the Act.
Parliament also resolved to create a Ukrainian defense ministry and subordinate military formations stationed in Ukraine to the Ukrainian parliament.
Belarus, one day later — by a different route
On 25 August, Belarus took a related but legally distinct step: rather than adopting a new declaration, it gave its July 1990 Declaration of State Sovereignty constitutional force — the act conventionally treated as its independence.
Neither move ended the USSR by itself. Two documents also shouldn't be conflated on the Ukrainian side: the 16 July 1990 sovereignty declaration and this 24 August 1991 Act are different instruments — and the Union's formal end came only in December, after Ukraine's referendum confirmed the Act.
Sources
Researched 23 Aug 2026 5 sources 3 audit passes, 1 issue open
How this was checked
Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →
What the sources leave uncertain
- Belarus did not adopt a newly worded independence declaration on 25 August. It granted constitutional status to its 27 July 1990 sovereignty declaration, a step widely treated as full independence.
- Ukraine’s declaration took effect immediately, but its popular confirmation came in the 1 December referendum and the USSR continued formally until December.
Checked against
- Act of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine—official English text
- Ukrainian Institute of National Memory: Proclamation of Ukraine’s independence
- Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine: Ukraine’s Declaration of Independence, 1991
- U.S. Office of the Historian: Belarus
- CSCE compendium on independence referendums, 1991–92