The end of the Soviet Union left Russia significantly shrunken territorially (76 of the USSR), demographically (50 of the USSR s population), economically (45 of the USSR s output), and in terms of military personnel (33 of the USSR s armed forces).

Consider the Soviet Union.

Reagan characterized the Soviet Union as an evil empire and increased defense spending to challenge Soviet aggression and capabilities.

And, when the USSR annexed the Baltic countries, Königsberg, parts of Poland, Finland, Moldova, and Japan, their citizens, too, became Soviet compatriots.

After that, however, the Soviet growth rate and share of global output began a long decline.

The Soviet Union could not keep up.

December 16 Kazakhstan declares its independence from the Soviet Union.

Indeed, he recently called the disintegration of the Soviet Union a tragic mistake.

Yet in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed.

In Putin s view, the Soviet Union collapsed under the weight of its debts.

Backers of a socialist model have gone the way of the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union s collapse, it should be remembered, was not the result of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev s reformist betrayal.

With the Soviet Union s collapse, a unique opportunity to end the nuclear competition emerged.

Back then, Egypt was closely aligned with the Soviet Union.

It detonated a hydrogen bomb in 1952, only one year after the US, and it was the first to launch a satellite into space, in 1957.

In this narrative, the Cold War was not so much won by the US and the West as lost by the Soviets, the inevitable result of Soviet economic weakness and political decay.

They regard the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany as the highest achievement of the state and nation that they inherited from the USSR.

In 1918, it was decreed that all nationalities in the Soviet Union had the right to education in their own language.

After regaining its independence from the Soviet Union, only remnants of the industrial behemoths of the communist era remained.

Since the USSR s collapse, a new generation has come of age throughout the region.

Next month will see the 15th anniversary of the Soviet Union s disintegration.

By December 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

The Soviet Union engaged the US in a race to the moon.

Separatist pressures emerged in Crimea immediately following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Moldova is more dependent on the EU than any other former Soviet republic.

The same is true for Eastern Europe, the ex Soviet states, and Latin America.

Fears that the Soviet Union would cheat reinforced their position.

Obviously, the USSR is not about to be resurrected.

The SCO emerged from the wreckage of the Soviet Union in 1996.

A third of humanity saw the Soviet Union as leading the world toward global socialism.

Today, the Soviet Union has vanished, and Chinese power is growing.

Nicolas Sarkozy is not de Gaulle, and Russia is not the Soviet Union.

But, with Khrushchev s fall, Soviet first ladies returned to the dacha.

The Soviet Union and its empire quietly disappeared, and with them the Cold War international order.

But red flag is also associated with some not very good periods in the history of the USSR and Germany.

Many former Soviet Republics with EU aspirations have become victims of this loss of nerve, as have the Western Balkan countries.

But, with the Soviet Union s disappearance, the US abandoned that game.

After the Soviet disintegration, even Russia emerged as a credible candidate for democratic reform.

Today, China is producing literary exiles at a faster rate that the Soviet Union ever achieved.

Nor does it have Soviet style ideological appeal.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and of communism were, in part, dramatic responses to US policies and to the inability of the Soviet economy to keep up with the West.

During the Cuban missile crisis, he did not try to humiliate or win a total victory over the Soviet Union.

Uzbekistan, a former Soviet Republic, is a poor country without many employment opportunities.

The overwhelming majority of Europeans, however, probably view the USSR s breakup as a cause for celebration.

I established Open Society Foundations in all the countries of the former Soviet Union.