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Mikhail Gorbachev

April 2026

  • Composite: Guardian Design/Getty

    The Audio Long Read
    From the archive: Freedom without constraints: how the US squandered its cold war victory – podcast

    This week, from 2020: The US believed the American way of life was humankind’s ultimate destiny. But unrestrained greed has led to an era of injustice and division.

    By Andrew Bacevich. Read by Kelly Burke
    Podcast37:45

November 2024

  • George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev shaking hands during the Malta summit press conference, 3 December 1989.

    From the Guardian archive
    Malta summit ends the cold war – archive, 1989

    On 3 December 1989, the US and the USSR declared an end to the cold war. A few days later, European Community leaders met to shape a single European market for the 1990s. See how the Guardian reported events

February 2024

  • Anti-nuclear protesters outside the gates of Greenham Common airbase in November 1983.

    On nuclear disarmament, toughness and realism prevail

    Letter: Julian Lewis MP recalls a multilateral deal that eliminated both cruise and Soviet SS-20 missiles

January 2024

  • RAF Greenham Common airbase, the site of continuous women's peace protests from 1981 until 1991.

    The warnings from Greenham Common’s women are as pertinent as ever

    Letter: Mikhail Gorbachev paid tribute to the role we played in bringing him and Ronald Reagan together, writes Dr Rebecca E Johnson, but we are still on the brink of nuclear war

September 2023

  • Werner Herzog

    ‘Everything became a lie, a performance’ – Werner Herzog on Soviet Russia

    The German director is championing Georgian film-maker Rezo Gigineishvili’s movie about the dying days of the USSR. But, he says, he won’t be drawn into contemporary political debates

August 2023

  • Dmitry Muratov in Moscow in the Channel 4 documentary.

    Paying the price of truth: Nobel peace laureate Dmitry Muratov won’t be silenced by Putin

    The Russian newspaper editor speaks from Moscow in an exclusive interview as a new film biography charts his defiance of the Kremlin during the war in Ukraine

June 2023

  • FILES-RUSSIA-POLAND-EU-GAS-NORD STREAM 2-GAZPROM<br>(FILES) This file photo taken on May 21, 2019 shows incoming pipelines leading to the Bovanenkovo gas field on the Yamal peninsula in the Arctic circle. - Poland's anti-monopoly watchdog on Wednesday, October 7, 2020 said it was demanding Russian gas giant Gazprom pay a 6.45 billion euro ($7.58 billion) fine over the Nord Stream 2 pipeline linking Russia to Germany. (Photo by Alexander NEMENOV / AFP) (Photo by ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP via Getty Images)

    The Guardian view on the Arctic: threatened by Putin’s war

    Editorial: Geopolitical fallout from the conflict in Ukraine is threatening an environmentally crucial region

February 2023

  • Anatol Lieven

    double quotation markFor years, Putin didn’t invade Ukraine. What made him finally snap in 2022?

    Anatol Lieven
    This war is Russia’s fault. But European nations rebuffing Russia during the noughties did not help, says Anatol Lieven of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft

December 2022

  • Mikhail Gorbachev being interviewed in Moscow, 1989.

    The Observer's obituaries of 2022
    Mikhail Gorbachev remembered by Pavel Palazhchenko

    The former Soviet leader’s longtime translator remembers an optimist who wanted to achieve his goals by persuasion, not force, and understood that he was a man of history

October 2022

  • Still from Russia 1985-1999 TraumaZone, an Adam Curtis documentary series

    TV review
    Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone review – ingenious, essential viewing from Adam Curtis

    Showing everyone from reindeer herders to scientists wrapping themselves in sticky tape to head into Chernobyl, this fine series traces the latterday Russian revolution that brought in a kleptocracy and paved the way for Putin

September 2022

  • Mikhail Gorbachev in 2016

    Mikhail Gorbachev’s commitment to the environment was ahead of its time

  • Ivan Krastev

    double quotation markGorbachev freed my generation of eastern Europeans from the abyss. We saw a different future

    Ivan Krastev
  • Mikhail Gorbachev in May 1985, two months after being made leader of the Soviet Union.

    The Observer view on Mikhail Gorbachev: he drew a line under a wretched past but failed to usher in a brighter future

  • People line up to pay the last respects at the coffin of former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev outside the Pillar Hall of the House of the Unions during a farewell ceremony in Moscow, Russia, Saturday, Sept. 3, 2022. Gorbachev, who died Tuesday at the age of 91, will be buried at Moscow's Novodevichy cemetery next to his wife, Raisa, following a farewell ceremony at the Pillar Hall of the House of the Unions, an iconic mansion near the Kremlin that has served as the venue for state funerals since Soviet times. (AP Photo)

    ‘His was the slow way to freedom’: Russia says farewell to Mikhail Gorbachev

  • Mikhail Gorbachev funeral held in Moscow as Putin too busy to attend

  • double quotation markOnce the world had Gorbachev and Mandela. Now we have Trump, Johnson and Truss

    Jonathan Freedland

  • Putin to snub Gorbachev funeral due to work schedule

  • Russian President Putin listens to former President of the Soviet Union Gorbachev during news conference in Schleswig<br>Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) listens to former President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, during a news conference following bilateral talks with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder at Schloss Gottorf Palace in the northern German town of Schleswig December 21 2004. Putin welcomed proposals for Germany and the European Union to help resolve the conflict in Chechnya as he arrived in Germany on Monday for two days of talks with Chancellor Schroeder. REUTERS/Christian Charisius

    The Guardian view on Gorbachev’s legacy: the hope endures

    Editorial: Russia’s post-Soviet experiment in democracy failed, but the dream of its political freedom must be preserved
  • Mikhail Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan<br>FILE - Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev, left, and U.S. President Ronald Reagan talk during their meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland, Saturday, Oct. 11, 1986. Russian news agencies are reporting that former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has died at 91. The Tass, RIA Novosti and Interfax news agencies cited the Central Clinical Hospital. (AP Photo/Scott Stewart, File)

    Gorbachev was let down by the west. Putin’s Russia is the result

    Letters: With better support from the US and Britain, Russia could have been a very different place today, says Michael Meadowcroft, while Bill Robinson remembers photographing the Thatchers and the Gorbachevs in Moscow
  • Vladimir Putin (right), with Mikhail Gorbachev (left) at a news conference

    Kremlin fails to say whether Gorbachev will get state funeral

    Putin acknowledges last Soviet leader’s ‘huge impact’ while grappling with his legacy of reform
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