In early 1990, when Mikhail Gorbachev’s efforts to liberalize Soviet life were in full flower, I was on a journalistic exchange with a Russian newspaper — Moscow News — at the apex of the glasnost (“openness”) campaign.
When the news broke of Gorbachev’s death, my mind flashed back to the excitement of those days in 1990, and to the lost dreams of my Moscow News colleagues, who had hoped for a “normal” country. Instead, most of those journalists — who became editors, anchormen, and reporting stars in the 1990s — have now been silenced by Vladimir Putin’s media crackdowns, or fled the country after his invasion of Ukraine.
Gorbachev’s death and Putin’s refusal to attend his funeral illuminate a frightening reality: The Russian leader wants the world to know he is the anti-Gorbi.
