
Like Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the other proponents of the Enlightenment, Gorbachev operated on the principle that people, by nature, are good, and it is only society that makes them bad. If you give a person freedom, they will use it for good. The root of his mistakes lay in this faith. But it is the only faith that we should share.

It’s hard to imagine Moscow being able to convince the rest of the world that its attempts to reinvent the global monetary system are an improvement on the tried and tested convenience of reserve currencies. Accordingly, Russian companies will have to accept all the additional risks and expense inherent to dubious schemes to avoid using the dollar and euro.
Ankara’s relationship with Moscow is becoming directly linked to his bid to win the Turkish elections in 2023. Meanwhile, a disruptive Turkey within NATO and President Erdogan’s continued balancing act with the Kremlin offer Putin a strategic advantage.
Whilst reporters are fixed on the number of tank and infantry battles occurring across the country, many are missing the heated struggles taking place in within Ukraine's cyberspace.
The Russians are getting symbolic value of having the Chinese run interference for them and trying to embrace some Russian talking points, but where it really matters, in terms of military direct support for Russia's war they are badly disappointed.
Glasnost was the opening of society, including the media, to debate and discussion, something that had not been tried since the brief “thaw” under Nikita Khrushchev in the late 1950s.
The International Atomic Energy Agency's mission to the Ukraine nuclear power plant is essentially trying to ascertain whether safety, security, and safeguard compliance are in order at the nuclear power plant.

The Soviet Union under Gorbachev was more free than Russia today. Back then, it was thanks to him that we had something we do not have right now: hope for a better future and faith that there is a way out of all this.
Because of the premium the Kremlin places on deniability, entrepreneurialism within its security ecosystem, and political warfare below the threshold of armed war, Russian PMCs will continue to play a central role in Moscow’s conflict toolkit.
Andrew Weiss of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace joins Amna Nawaz to discuss Gorbachev's legacy.