Fifteen new republics were born from the unravelling of the USSR, and July 1991 signalled the end of the Warsaw Pact, as well as the ratification of the START treaty which reduced nuclear weapons definitively in America and Russia.

On Christmas Day that year, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as the Russian leader, with his successor Boris Yeltsin becoming the country’s first democratically elected president. Russia, officially recognising the USSR’s collapse on 26 December 1991, brings the Cold War to its close. In this photo, a toppled statue of Stalin symbolises the fall of the Soviet Union.

Now discover what Europe's capital cities looked like 100 years ago

Fascinating images from the Cold War: how the world prepared for nuclear oblivion