Mikhail Gorbachev from the area around Chernobyl. Taubman noted that the disaster marked "a turning point for Gorbachev and the Soviet regime". Gorbachev later described the incident as one which made him appreciate the scale of incompetence and cover-ups in the Soviet Union. From April to the end of the year, Gorbachev became increasingly open in his criticism of the Soviet system, including food production, state bureaucracy, the military draft, and the large size of the prison population. Gorbachev's primary goal as general secretary was to revive the Soviet economy after the stagnant Brezhnev years. In 1985, he announced that the economy
Mikhail Gorbachev overwhelmingly voted for independence. Ukraine had been the second most powerful republic in the Soviet Union after Russia, and its secession ended any realistic chance of the Soviet Union staying united even on a limited scale. The presidents of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus met in Belovezha Forest, near Brest, Belarus, on 8 December and signed the Belavezha Accords, which declared the Soviet Union had ceased to exist and formed the Commonwealth of Independent States as its successor. Gorbachev initially denounced this move as illegal. Nonetheless, there was no longer any doubt that the Soviet Union, in the words of the