The Cold War provided the US with strategic and defensive advantages; some politicians also used it to push their view of what it meant to be American.
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev addresses a group of 150 business executives in San Francisco in June 1990.
(AP Photo/David Longstreath)
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 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.
Like other tragic reformers in history, Gorbachev’s chief legacy is to remind us about what might have been, rather than what subsequently transpired.
A view of destroyed Russian military vehicles installed in downtown Kyiv, Ukraine, on Aug. 24, 2022. Kyiv authorities banned mass gatherings in the capital for fear of Russian missile attacks. Independence Day fell on the same day as the six-month mark in the war.
(AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Aug. 24, 2022 marked both the 31st anniversary of Ukraine’s independence from the Soviet Union and the six-month mark of war. As they have for more than three decades, Ukrainians showed resilience.