The Latest Breaking News from Konstantin Chernenko

Mikhail Gorbachev stepped onto a Washington street and began shaking hands to cheers and applause in 1990 -- a bit of unaccustomed political showmanship worthy of his friend Ronald Reagan. Ana Maria Guzman was in the park on her lunch break that May when she saw the Soviet leader, who…

No western leader could have predicted his progressive reforms. But war between his country and Ukraine was a devastating blow, says Archie Brown, an emeritus professor of politics at Oxford University

Before Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union seemed an immovable superpower in perpetual antagonism to the United States

In power less than seven years, Gorbachev unleashed breathtaking changes that overtook him and resulted in the collapse of the authoritarian Soviet state, the freeing of Eastern European nations from Russian domination and the end of decades of East-West nuclear confrontation.

It is unlikely Vladimir Putin will step down as he's cemented his role until at last 2036 - it follows speculation the Kremlin boss is in ill health