Writing history: 30 years on, a former Moscow correspondent reflects on the end of the USSR

By James Rodgers, Reader in International Journalism, City, University of London

The Soviet anthem hailed the socialist union that it celebrated as “indestructible”. Yet 30 years ago this week, the then Russian president, Boris Yeltsin, together with the leaders of Ukraine and Belarus, signed the agreement that created the Commonwealth of Independent States. It was the end for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

Events unfolded in a deliberately discrete location: a hunting lodge for the Soviet elite tucked away in a forest in Belarus. As historian Vladislav Zubok writes…

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