On 26 December, 1991, the hammer-and-sickle flag was lowered over the Kremlin for the last time.
Until its denouement, no Western or Soviet politician foresaw that the standoff between the two superpowers--after decades of struggle over every aspect of secur.
Yet, just six years earlier, when Mikhail Gorbach v became general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and chose Eduard Shevardnadze as his foreign minister, the Cold War seemed like a permanent fixture in world politics.
On 26 December, 1991, the hammer-and-sickle flag was lowered over the Kremlin for the last time