Soviet Union news stories on Newser

Russia Plans Moonwalk by 2030

Dustin Lushing — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 16:35:45 CDT

Russia will finally send a human to the moon. At least it's planning to—by 2030, according to a leaked document from Roskosmos, the Russian Space agency. The Russians have intermittently laid forth enthusiastic goals for space exploration in recent years, reports the Telegraph , but never with a set deadline...

Secret Cold War Project Revealed After 45 Years

Dustin Lushing — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 15:00:05 CST

An ultra-secret clan of scientists and engineers who toiled in a gigantic enclave in Danbury, Conn., can finally reveal its covert activities. Declassified in September, project Hexagon launched the most successful spy satellite network of the Cold War and collected crucial data for decades that helped undermine the Soviet Union,...

Josef Stalin's Daughter Dies in Wisconsin

Rob Quinn — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 00:15:29 CST

Josef Stalin's only daughter has died in Wisconsin at the age of 85. Lana Peters—born Svetlana Alliluyeva Stalin—handed the US a massive Cold War publicity coup when she defected to the US in 1967, publicly burning her Soviet passport, and declaring: "I have come here to seek the...

Putin: Time for 'Eurasian Union'

Matt Cantor — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 16:11:34 CDT

Russia’s former—and likely next —president wants to join former Soviet countries in a “Eurasian Union.” The entity would be rooted in Russia’s Customs Union with Belarus and Kazakhstan, to allow labor, capital, and trade to flow freely among the countries beginning next year, Reuters notes. But “we are not...

Soviets Lied About Flawed '61 Space Flight

Evann Gastaldo — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 13:08:19 CDT

When Yuri Gagarin took the first manned flight into space in 1961, the Soviet Union touted it as a major Cold War triumph for Communist ideology. But the flight wasn’t as perfect as Soviet officials claimed, a new book asserts. In truth, due to two miscalculations by scientists, Gagarin landed...

Saddam Sought Soviet Help in '91

Rob Quinn — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 01:18:40 CST

A frustrated Saddam Hussein pleaded with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev for diplomatic assistance as the Operation Desert Storm ground battle began in 1991, reveal newly declassified records from Iraqi archives. The records—part of a huge archive containing millions of documents and thousands of hours of video footage captured after...

Nixon Tapes: Kissinger Is a 'Vile Creature'

Matt Cantor — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 17:41:05 CST

Ever since Watergate, Henry Kissinger has deserved to be “shamed, ostracized, and excluded”—yet, for some reason, people still pay him to speak and have “dinners in his honor,” complains Christopher Hitchens on Slate . Well, the new Nixon tapes should finally change that: quotes reveal that Kissinger would “be indifferent...

FBI Suspected Irving Kristol of Soviet Ties

Matt Cantor — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 14:00:05 CST

During the late 1980s, the father of neoconservatism—who is also the father of Fox News commentator and Weekly Standard boss Bill Kristol—was investigated by the FBI over possible contact with a suspected Soviet agent, Gawker finds in a study of FBI documents. The much-redacted documents suggest contact information...

US Now in Afghanistan as Long as Soviets

Rob Quinn — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 05:57:54 CST

As of today, the US military has been fighting in Afghanistan for 9 years and 50 days—exactly as long as the Soviets did during their doomed campaign to turn the country into a socialist state. Analysts say that while the Soviet invasion and the NATO campaign have very different...