Gorbachev as an ultimately tragic figure

Few world leaders have cut a more consequential but ultimately tragic figure than Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, whose death at the age of 91 has been announced by Russian state media. In a way, it was fitting that as the last leader of the USSR, Gorbachev was probably its only truly humane one. And it’s equally […]

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Russia-Israel relations: It’s complicated

Russian President Vladimir Putin with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Kremlin in Moscow on May 9, 2018. Photo: AFP/Sergei Ilnitsky

Being the president of Russia means never having to say you’re sorry, except – remarkably – after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claimed casually that Adolf Hitler was of partly Jewish descent. Vladimir Putin offered a personal apology to then-Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett. Reflexive Russian anti-Semitism is a dog-bites-man story; a Russian leader’s apology […]

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