A historian counters the popular view that the 1989 collapse of the Berlin Wall set in motion talks to end apartheid. The process was unstoppable by then.
Some of the key articles from our coverage of the war in Ukraine over the past week.
Mikhail Gorbachev in 2007 with the editor of independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, holding a book about the murdered reporter Anna Politkovskaya.
EPA/Sergei Chirikov
While Mikhail Gorbachev was feted in the West — he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 — he was widely despised in Russia by those both mourning and celebrating the end of Soviet power.
Mikhail Gorbachev at his news conference following a summit with US President Ronald Reagan in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1986.
Photo by Bryn Colton/Getty Images
Mikhail Gorbachev died at 91 on Aug. 30, 2022. A historian of the Soviet era assesses his impact and the consequences of his failed attempts to reform state socialism.
Mikhail Gorbachev addresses American business executives in 1990.
David Longstreath/AP
Monica Attard witnessed the death throes of the USSR – and the birth of a brave new world – as the ABC’s Russia foreign correspondent. In 2022, a return to an Orwellian regime looms.