Mikhail Gorbachev has died

Gorbachev secured his place in history by what he didn't do. While never endorsing the end of the eastern bloc, he made it clear beginning in the late 1980's that unlike his predecessors, he would not oppose democratic reforms in Eastern Europe by force. To general astonishment, he kept this promise, and with the regrettable exception of Lithuania this commitment to not repeating the crimes of his predecessors is Gorbachev's greatest legacy. In 1988 you would have been hard pressed to find anyone who could imagine the mostly peaceful collapse of the Eastern Bloc, but Gorbachev had the moral courage to accept this once unimaginable consequence of his policy and to see it through.

But the dissolution of soviet union is not over yet. You can see this nowhere as clearly as in russias attack on Ukraine[0] where imperialistic russians that dream of restoring the glory and borders of soviet union[1] are waging their genocidal war. Meanwhile they are using hunger[2] and energy as their weapons against the rest of the world[3].

If the russians are not stopped in Ukraine, then there is no reason to believe that they wouldn't rinse and repeat in Baltic states, Kazakhstan, Moldova, and all other now independent former russian states. Including Alaska[4], should opportunity represent itself.

To truly secure Gorbachevs place in history, world must decisively say no to the russians agressions in Ukraine, and help Ukraine deliver a humiliating defeat to the russians and the dissolution of soviet union reach it's logical conclusion by stripping russia and their dreams off of any status as military, or world power.

[0] https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-... [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26769481 [2] https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/world-news/russia/957367/russ... [3] https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/putins-en... [4] https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/03/19/does-russia-want-alas...

From your link [1].

He [Putin] became briefly close to President George W Bush - who even claimed to have glimpsed Putin's soul - until the Iraq War drove them apart. In Iraq, Putin insisted that international law must be upheld - no invasion could be allowed without approval from the United Nations Security Council, and that approval was not forthcoming.

This is also Putin and it is not singular. If you listen to his speeches, he often demands that international laws and treaties should be upheld and he became increasingly frustrated over the years that this was not done. Maybe you can argue that this was his only option out of a position of weakness, but never the less he did this.

Putin wanting to recapture and rebuild a past empire is a very new narrative without much supporting evidence over all those years.

I don’t think opposing someone else’s war is much of a credit to him, or evidence against the idea that he is motivated to Make Russia Great Again. It seems more like he wants International Law to bind others but not himself.

He was not completely opposing it, he just demanded to follow the law - you make your case in front of the UN and get it sanctioned. And in this case you should get credit for opposing it as it was all made up bullshit.

Making Russia great again is also perfectly fine if it means to rebuild the economy, improve living standards, and similar things. Making it greater again, i.e. extending the territory with force is of course a different matter.

How well Russia followed the laws and treaties itself, I can not judge, I only know that Putin often said, we are fulfilling our obligations even though the US or someone else does this or that. See for example the speech at the 2007 Munich security conference [1]. How true this all is, I can not tell, I would have to become a full time fact checker.

[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ58Yv6kP44