OPINION: As war rages in Ukraine, Reagan's historic mission to Russia has lessons for us today
Reagan had come into office nearly eight years earlier an avowed enemy of the Soviet Union. He called it"the evil empire" and predicted it would be consigned to"the ash heap of history." FILE – MOSCOW, RUSSIA - MAY 31: In this handout from the White House, U.S. President Ronald Reagan shakes hands with a boy as Mikhail Gorbachev looks on during a tour of Red Square May 31, 1988 in Moscow, Soviet Union.
FILE – Former President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev attends a symposium on security in Europe 25 years after the fall of the "Wall" in Berlin on November 8, 2014. Gorbachev warned in Germany on November 7, 2014, of new East-West tensions sparked by the Ukraine crisis, speaking ahead of ceremonies commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall.Reagan and Gorbachev recognized that they had one purpose in common.
Six months before the Reagans visited Moscow, Gorbachev and his wife Raisa came to Washington, D.C., where the leaders would sign a treaty to reduce intermediate-range nuclear weapons. Though he never revealed it to Reagan, by then Gorbachev knew that the Soviet system was failing. In his 2011 book, The New Russia, Gorbachev wrote of his growing awareness of the Soviet plight:"A dead-end political situation, economic stagnation, a build-up of unresolved social problems, violation of the rights and dignity of citizens."
For thirty years he has resented what he perceives as the destruction of the Russian homeland, which extends into other territories. This belief was behind his seizure of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, and it’s behind his invasion of Ukraine.
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