Short answers, pulled from the story.
The New Union Treaty aimed to replace the 1922 Treaty on the Creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics with a less centralized federal system. It sought to transform the Soviet Union into a confederation of independent republics sharing a common president and military.
A drafting committee began work on the text of the New Union Treaty on the 1st of January 1991 at Novo-Ogaryovo, a governmental estate where Gorbachev met with leaders from various republics.
Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania stayed away from the negotiations regarding the New Union Treaty during the drafting phase.
Hardliners seized control of the government on the 18th of August 1991 to stop the scheduled signing ceremony on the 20th of August 1991. They confined Mikhail Gorbachev in his Crimean dacha to prevent him from returning to Moscow and canceling the treaty.
The Belovezha Accords signed on the 8th of December 1991 marked the official end of the Soviet Union by creating the Commonwealth of Independent States. This organization consisted of twelve newly independent states formed after the collapse.