Most of the Communist nations that broke away from the Soviet Union are now republics. Republics is a sovereign country with a form of government in which power resides in elected individuals representing the citizens and government leaders exercise power according to the rule of law. There is 15 post-soviet states: Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The dissolution of The Soviet Union was formally enacted on December 21, 1991.