A week after Kravchuk's victory, on 8 December, he and his Russian and Belarusian counterparts signed the Belovezha Accords, which declared that the Soviet Union had effectively ceased to exist and forming the Commonwealth of Independent States as a replacement. They were joined by eight of the remaining 12 republics (all except Georgia) on 21 December in signing the Alma-Ata Protocol, which reiterated that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist. The Soviet Union formally dissolved on 26 December.