MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev’s resignation 30 years ago was a momentous event that ended an era by drawing a line under the USSR’s existence.

It was a landmark event that ended an era: Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's resignation 30 years ago finalized the USSR’s demise. The AP's Moscow photo chief at the time, Liu Heung Shing, was the only foreign photographer who captured the pivotal moment on Dec. 25, 1991. In the fall of 1991, the Soviet Union was speeding up quickly to its dissolution.

People strolling across Moscow’s snowy Red Square on the evening of Dec. 25, 1991 witnessed one of the 20th century’s most pivotal moments.

People strolling across Moscow's snowy Red Square on the evening of Dec. 25, 1991 were surprised to witness one of the 20th century’s most pivotal moments — the Soviet red flag over the Kremlin pulled down and replaced with the Russian Federation's tricolor. Just minutes earlier, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev announced his resignation in a live televised address to the nation, concluding 74 years of Soviet history. In his memoirs, Gorbachev, now 90, bitterly lamented his failure to prevent the USSR's demise, an event that upset the world's balance of power and sowed the seeds of an ongoing tug-of-war between Russia and neighboring Ukraine.

To understand the friction between Russia and Ukraine, it's important to go back to 1991. Exactly 30 years ago this weekend, the Soviet Union formally dissolved and broke up into 15 separate nations.

The last Soviet president, who's now 90, said the West then "decided to build a new empire. Hence the idea of NATO expansion."

Russian President Vladimir Putin once floated the prospect of his country joining NATO.

A Russian military buildup has raised fears in Ukraine and the West that Moscow could invade its neighbor.

Former Senator Bob Dole is lying in state at the U.S. Capitol, where the president and others gathered to honor an “American giant” who served the country in war and in politics with pragmatism, wit and a bygone era's sense of common civility. (Dec. 9)

More than 50 historically Black college and university leaders are asking the Senate to pass President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better spending plan, saying the funds help Black students achieve the American dream. (Dec. 9)

A historic tribute in Washington, D.C., on Thursday will honor the late politician just as a controversy arises over one of the people planning his funeral. ABC News’ Em Nguyen has the details.

Tens of thousands of Russian troops at Ukraine’s border threaten to escalate a long-running conflict. President Biden warned Russian President Putin of taking 'strong measures' over invasion fears.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and the Republican caucus in Congress accept the harassment of members of Congress, particularly women of color. She made the remarks in a press conference announcing a resolution to strip Rep. Lauren Boebert of her committee assignments after the Colorado Republican made anti-Muslim comments against Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.

Less than a year after losing the presidency, Donald Trump has set out to reshape the GOP in his image across the nation's top political battlegrounds, sparking bitter primary battles that will force candidates and voters to decide how much to embrace Trump and his grievances. But nowhere is his quest more consequential than Georgia.

When the leaders of the Soviet Union’s three Slavic republics met at a secluded hunting lodge near the Polish border on Dec. 8, 1991, they delivered a death blow to the USSR.

With a stroke of their pens, they delivered a death blow to the USSR, triggering shockwaves that are still reverberating three decades later in the tensions between Russia and Ukraine. The agreement they signed signed at the dacha in Viskuli, in the Belavezha forest near the border with Poland, declared that “the USSR ceases to exist as a subject of international law and as a geopolitical reality.” Two weeks later, eight other Soviet republics joined the alliance, effectively terminating the authority of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who stepped down on Dec. 25, 1991, with the hammer and sickle flag lowered over the Kremlin.

The Nobel Peace Prize sometimes recognizes groundbreaking efforts to resolve seemingly intractable conflicts.

Journalists, human rights groups and other activists enthusiastically welcomed the awarding of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to two journalists at a time when media groups around the world face new pressures and crackdowns from the authorities.

Ukraine’s president has urged closer ties between the ex-Soviet nation and NATO and the European Union in a speech marking the 30th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence.

On Aug. 19, 1991, a group of top Communist Party hard-liners declared they had removed Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev from power and declared a state of emergency in the country.

The world held its breath 30 years ago when a group of top Communist officials ousted Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and flooded Moscow with tanks.

Gorbachev has acknowledged Moscow's own decade-long campaign in Afghanistan was a failed deployment that hindered the country in its final years.

Russian rock musician, poet and actor Pyotr Mamonov has died at the age of 70.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has praised the outcome of his summit with U.S. President Joe Biden and called him an astute negotiator.

With Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin heading to town, Geneva is returning to the international spotlight as a leading hub for diplomacy and multilateralism, things that were largely shunned by the Trump administration.

If President Joe Biden has any private words with Russia’s Vladimir Putin at their meeting next week, U.S. interpreters and diplomats will be standing by to document their high-stakes encounter.

Top diplomats from the United States and Russia have sparred firmly but politely in Iceland in their first face-to-face encounter.

(AP Photo/Barry Thumma, File)WASHINGTON – Time was running out when Secretary of State George P. Shultz returned home in April 1988 after flying 16,000 miles in a failed mission to persuade Arabs and Israelis to negotiate their differences. AdA lifelong Republican, Shultz negotiated the first-ever treaty with the Soviet Union to reduce the size of their ground-based nuclear arsenals. The president would not yield, and Reagan and Shultz returned to the United States disappointed but determined to pursue an accord. Although Shultz objected, Reagan went ahead with the deal and millions of dollars from Iran went to right-wing Contra guerrillas in Nicaragua. But only a few years later, Reagan and Shultz, considered Israel’s best friends, had opened the door to Palestinian legitimacy and possibly a Palestinian state on land held by Israel.

King died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, his production company, Ora Media, tweeted. In its early years, “Larry King Live” was based in Washington, which gave the show an air of gravitas. “Do you know who I am?”“Always loved Larry King and will miss him,” Seinfeld tweeted Saturday. Originating from Washington on the Mutual network, “The Larry King Show” was eventually heard on more than 300 stations and made King a national phenomenon. “Larry King Live” debuted on June 1, 1985, and became CNN’s highest-rated program.

Sheehy, widow of New York magazine founder Clay Felker, died Monday of complications from pneumonia in Southampton, New York, according to her daughter, Maura Sheehy. She would continue with The Silent Passage (menopause), New Passages (life after 50), Understanding Mens Passages (a midlife resource for men) and Passages in Caregiving (caring for family members). Sheehy told her own story in the 2014 memoir Daring: My Passages.When not writing books, Sheehy was a popular lecturer and television commentator and a well-traveled journalist specializing in psychological portraits of public figures. For New York magazine, Vanity Fair and other publications, she interviewed everyone from Bill and Hillary Clinton to Margaret Thatcher to Mikhail Gorbachev. (Sheehy and Felker later adopted a girl, Momh).

The very nature of a protest suggests a fervent desire for change, the need to right a perceived historic injustice. Confronting tyranny can also backfire, the result a more dictatorial leader or a ruinous civil war. Here's a look at some of the key protests of recent decades and what they achieved or failed. Syria exploded quickly from an uprising against the Assad dynasty to ruinous civil war which still continues with more than half million dead and millions displaced. In neighboring Lebanon and in Iraq, civil protests erupted last October against ruling elites.

The U.S. has formally withdrawn from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, a missile reduction agreement signed by Presidents Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987. In a statement, Pompeo said, "Russia is solely responsible for the treaty's demise. The United States will not remain party to a treaty that is deliberately violated by Russia." The US and NATO agree: Russia violated the INF, and leaving the agreement is in the best interests of our collective security. He took to Twitter, as well:On Feb 2nd, 2019 the U.S. gave Russia six months to return to compliance with the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.