Russia and Former Soviet Union

Washington, D.C., December 18, 2024 – A now-legendary but long-secret 70-paragraph telegram written by the top political analyst at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow in March 1994, E. Wayne Merry, criticizing the American policy focus on radical economic reform in Russia, was published in full today for the first time by the National Security Archive.

Washington, D.C., December 5, 2024 – Thirty years ago, the Budapest Memorandum ensured the destruction of dangerous post-Soviet nuclear stockpiles but was overshadowed at the time by Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s complaint that NATO expansion was causing a new division of Europe, according to declassified U.S. documents published on the anniversary today by the National Security Archive.

Washington, D.C., November 20, 2024 – The failure of the U.S. intelligence community to adequately warn policymakers about the poor Soviet grain harvest of 1972—resulting in higher food prices in the U.S.

Washington D.C., May 25, 2024 - The National Security Archive today marks what would have been Anatoly Sergeyevich Chernyaev’s 103rd birthday with the publication for the first time in English of his diary for 1984. A top aide to Mikhail Gorbachev who later became one of the most important scholars of the perestroika period, Chernyaev’s diary for 1984 documents his time as deputy director of the International Department of the Central Committee, responsible for the International Communist Movement (ICM).

Washington, D.C., April 29, 2024 - New evidence from Russian archival sources and published today by the National Security Archive details Fidel Castro’s extraordinary April-May 1963 trip to the USSR, which Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev saw as an opportunity to mend relations that had soured after the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Washington, D.C., April 4, 2024 - Top NATO and U.S. officials worked out cooperative agreements with senior Russian leaders including the defense minister of the newly independent Russian Federation during three years of high-level dialogue and hands-on engagement from 1992 to 1995, according to previously secret Russian and American documents published today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University.

Washington, D.C., March 21, 2024 - Vladimir Putin’s first election as president of Russia 24 years ago was “reasonably free and fair,” according to a declassified U.S. Embassy message from Moscow, one of ten documents on Russia’s 2000 presidential race published today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University. Written by then-U.S.

Washington, D.C., January 25, 2024 - Declassified highest-level records from the Moscow summit 30 years ago this month detail U.S. President Bill Clinton’s strong personal support for Russian President Boris Yeltsin, their close cooperation on security issues, and deep concern about Yeltsin backtracking on economic reforms newly understood by the Clinton team as too “harsh” on the Russian people.