The USSR had organized special sanatoriums for people left disabled after the war. Conditions there were not as appalling as the rumors claimed. Here’s why... “Hundreds of thousands of disabled people ...

A.Kovtun, B. Korzin/TASS After colonial empires in Africa collapsed, Moscow did all it could to make “African comrades” embrace socialism – but the romance didn’t last long. “During yet another crisis ...

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or ...

In Akademgorodok, residents experienced cultural freedom unlike anywhere else in the USSR. To this day, the town is one of the most important research centres in Russia. The Siberian taiga, where ...

It was a cold and grey afternoon in early November, 1984, when I, a first grader in Kharkiv—a city in what was then Soviet Ukraine—walked home after school with high spirits and feeling ready to ...

The USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) was formed after the Civil war of 1921 as the World's first Marxist-Communist state in the world. After that it would become one of the biggest and most ...

On December 26, 1991, the Stalinist regime headed by Mikhail Gorbachev formally dissolved the Soviet Union. The end of the USSR and the restoration of capitalism were the culminating acts of 70 years ...

Ah, the USSR. It was a strange place with strange ideas. Ideas such as planting unprotected mini nuclear power sources into inhospitable and hard-to-reach areas. I mean, nothing should go wrong as ...

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s handling of the uprising in Ukraine is not surprising if you look at telling comments he made years ago, says former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations turned ...

Knocking the USSR out of the war in the same way that they had knocked France out of the war was almost impossible given geographic reality. Yet, by the end of 1941 Germany faced an unbeatable Allied ...

How would history have unfolded if a flag with one star instead of 50 had been planted on the Moon? The Americans won the race to the Moon when Neil Armstrong set foot on the lunar surface in 1969.

Born in the USSR is the Soviet/Russian version of Michael Apted's British Up-series (1964 - ), following the same ordinary people over decades, seven years apart. The Soviet group includes children ...