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A time of hope, now dashed – former Reuters reporter recalls the Gorbachev years

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Euphoria. There is no better word to describe my feelings, the feelings of many in the Soviet intelligentsia, when Mikhail Gorbachev came to power and started the reforms that the world came to know as perestroika and glasnost. It was the euphoria of liberation, freedom, hope.

Changes that had seemed unthinkable were suddenly a reality, prompting a torrent of disbelieving questions. Did you know? Have you heard? Have you read...?

On the last day of the two-week session, he grabbed the microphone and started to deliver a speech on the need for more radical reforms. One of us shouted something like: "Mikhail Sergeyevich, there are persistent rumours that many around you are unhappy about your reforms and are planning to remove you."

I spent those 72 hours in the White House, where Gorbachev's ambitious rival Boris Yeltsin, newly elected president of Russia within the Soviet Union, led resistance to the coup. I can't imagine his torment if his mind was still alert on Feb. 24, when Russian troops invaded Ukraine. He may well have been asking himself, "Which of those countries is mine?", for his mother was Ukrainian, as was the father of his beloved late wife, Raisa.

 

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