Today
- Opinion
- US politics
Biography looking for a proto-Trump is blind to Reagan’s vision
Reagan’s accomplishments as president are nitpicked into insignificance in a book that seems more intent on ransacking his administration for clues to explain the ascension of Donald Trump.
- John Roskam
This Month
How Assad hoodwinked a naive West
Bashar al-Assad, Putin, Gaddafi – the free world too often gets its hopes up about despots.
- Janan Ganesh
October
A giant of Australian journalism, George Negus dies at 82
The father, partner and renowned journalist interviewed Thatcher, Gaddafi, Gorbachev and many more in a career spanning 50 years.
- Sam Buckingham-Jones
July 2023
To become president, Zelensky had to learn Ukrainian
How Ukraine’s Russian-speaking leader went from television provocateur to wartime president.
- Mikhail Zygar
June 2023
- Opinion
- Russia-Ukraine war
Vladimir Putin has created his own worst nightmare
Even if the Russian leader prevails in the immediate battle against Wagner, it is hard to believe that he can ultimately survive this kind of humiliation.
- Gideon Rachman
November 2022
Why Bono’s second career is the reason to keep reading his book
From the deal he did with George W. Bush to what he learned when Mikhail Gorbachev came over for dinner, the U2 frontman’s memoir is a rambling, fascinating read.
- Chris Klimek
September 2022
Russians mourn Gorbachev in silent protest against an absent Putin
Thousands of Russians on Saturday stood for several hours in snaking lines amid a heavy police presence to pay their respects to Mikhail Gorbachev, who died Tuesday.
- Valerie Hopkins and Ivan Nechepurenko
Pizza Hut brings in late-night munchies tax to combat inflation
The Australian unit’s sales are up 12 per cent thus far in calendar 2022 as it takes on market leader Domino’s Pizza.
- Simon Evans
Why Putin is determined to unravel Gorbachev’s legacy
Vladimir Putin says the end of the Soviet Union was a “genuine tragedy” and he blames Mikhail Gorbachev for ceding to the demands of a duplicitous West.
- Anton Troianovski
August 2022
- Opinion
- The AFR View
30 years on, Gorbachev leaves a complicated global legacy
The world divided between democracy and authoritarianism that we thought, or hoped, Mikhail Gorbachev helped to end three decades ago is now back with a vengeance.
- The AFR View
‘He was too decent for the country he led’: Gorbachev remembered
Gorbachev set out to revitalise the Soviet Union, but ended up unleashing forces that led to the collapse of communism and the break-up of the state.
- David Ljunggren
Gorbachev was a reformist who changed the map of Europe
Mikhail Gorbachev, who ended the Cold War and halted the global arms race, was hailed in the West as a hero but condemned by many in Russia.
- Marilyn Berger
- Analysis
- Obituaries
Mikhail Gorbachev, who steered Soviet breakup, dead at 91
He won the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in ending the Cold War and spent later years collecting accolades from around the world. Yet he was widely despised at home.
- Jim Heintz
What the murder of Darya Dugina means for Russia
It could mark a return to the violence of the 1990s, when powerful factions battled for influence after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
- Katie Stallard
March 2022
- Opinion
- Russia-Ukraine war
Putin has no good way out, and that really scares me
If you’re hoping that the instability that Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine has wreaked on global markets and geopolitics has peaked, your hope is in vain. We haven’t seen anything yet.
- Thomas L. Friedman
July 2021
- Opinion
- Inside China
China’s communists guard their future from the past
As they celebrate their party’s centenary, China’s leaders remain obsessed with the fate of the Soviet Union and its political reforms. They study history to avoid a repeat.
- Peter Cai
May 2021
‘I’ve mortally offended Putin by surviving’
Russia’s leading opposition figure, Alexei Navalny, has endured imprisonment and poisoning over the course of his political career. He isn’t finished yet.
- Arkady Ostrovsky
March 2021
Why we love, and hate, Jordan Peterson
The Canadian psychologist’s appeal is that he is every one of us who couldn’t resist that pointless Facebook argument.
- Helen Lewis
March 2021
- Opinion
- China relations
Apply the Reagan playbook to China
The former US president’s insight was to keep up the pressure on the true sources of his Cold War adversary’s power. That strategy could work again for the West.
- H.R. McMaster and Jonathan D.T. Ward
February 2021
Our (unequalled) man in Moscow
Few people had the understanding of the inner workings of Russia and its power elites in the Gorbachev to Putin era that diplomat and businessman Glenn Waller had.
- Kyle Wilson