soviet union

Yuriy Samoilenko stands for a portrait at the headquarters for Green World, an independent environmental advocacy group and the Ukrainian branch of Friends of the Earth International, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Aug. 18.

Ukraine still fears another Chernobyl-size disaster at Europe's largest nuclear plant

6:00am December 11, 2022

by Julian Hayda

International atomic experts have warned of a potential nuclear disaster with Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia plant in the middle of a war zone, bringing back terrifying memories of Chernobyl.

Residents hold a remembrance ceremony during the 90th anniversary of a great famine known as the Holodomor, at a museum in Drohobych, Ukraine, on Saturday.

World News

Ukraine remembers a famine under Stalin, and points to parallels with Putin

6:23pm November 28, 2022

by Greg Myre

Ukraine marked 90 years since a terrible famine that killed at least 4 million of its people. The event was especially poignant this year as Ukraine deals with its present crisis.

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A U-2 spy photo shows a medium-range ballistic missile base in San Cristobal, Cuba, with labels detailing various parts of the base in October 1962.

60 years after the Cuban missile crisis, Russia's threats reignite Cold War fears

7:00am October 16, 2022

by Scott Neuman

Over 13 days beginning on Oct. 16, 1962, the U.S. and Soviet Union were at the brink of a nuclear conflict. But since the Cold War ended, some historical assumptions about the crisis have changed.

Asher and David Cherkaskyi, Ukrainian Orthodox Jews who are father and son and have both been on the front lines in Ukraine's fight against Russian occupation, in Dnipro in July.

Jewish Ukrainian father and son soldiers mark holy days under cloud of Russia's war

5:09pm October 01, 2022

by Eleanor Beardsley

A father and son fighting for Ukraine against the Russian invasion say the war has heightened their Jewish identity.

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1992.

World News

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has died at 91

7:31pm August 30, 2022

by NPR Staff

Gorbachev was the Soviet Union's last leader and played a central role in ending the Cold War. The hospital that treated him said he died of a serious and protracted disease.

Russian demonstrators hold anti-American posters outside the U.S. Embassy in 2015. From the 1960s through the 1980s, the U.S. said the Soviet Union beamed microwave signals at the U.S. Embassy in an attempt to collect intelligence.

Long before Havana Syndrome, the U.S. reported microwaves beamed at an embassy

11:18am October 21, 2021

by Greg Myre

In the 1970s and '80s, U.S. officials routinely referred to the Soviet use of microwave radiation against the American Embassy in Moscow. The Soviets were believed to be seeking intelligence.

Chinese military delegates arrive for the National People's Congress in Beijing last March. The growing friction between the U.S. and China, combined with the rapid rise of China's economy and its military, has stirred a debate about whether the U.S. and

Are The U.S. And China Headed For A Cold War?

1:46pm September 09, 2019

by Greg Myre

U.S.-China tensions are rising on almost every front, and there are plenty of parallels to the U.S.-Soviet rivalry. Analysts say competition is inevitable, but doesn't have to lead to confrontation.

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An undated picture taken in St. Petersburg of the"Komsomolets" before it sank.

Norway Surveys Sunken Soviet Submarine

1:03pm July 11, 2019

by Geoff Brumfiel

A Norwegian team has found some radioactivity leaking from the sub, which sank in 1989. But they say it poses no threat to the environment.

People hold portraits of Soviet leader Josef Stalin in December 2018 as they line up in Moscow to lay flowers at his grave.

World News

Amid 'Quiet Rehabilitation Of Stalin,' Some Russians Honor The Memory Of His Victims

4:46pm July 08, 2019

by Lucian Kim

A civic initiative is commemorating those who were murdered under the rule of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, whom many Russians now admire for defeating Nazi Germany and making his nation a superpower.

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After she was detained, CIA officer Marti Peterson was taken to the KGB headquarters, Lubyanka, in central Moscow. She was held for four hours and kicked out of the Soviet Union the next day. She went on to work another 26 years for the CIA.

'Moscow Rules': How The CIA Operated Under The Watchful Eye Of The KGB

9:08am June 10, 2019

by Greg Myre

When CIA officers walk out of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, they're shadowed by Russian security. A new book examines how they have operated with this round-the-clock surveillance.

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