What Went Wrong?

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The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 ushered in a tumultuous period for Russia and Ukraine. The Soviet Union broke apart, Communism was exposed as morally bankrupt, and Russian leaders turned to the West for help. In an astonishing development, Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin invited a group of American evangelicals to give advice on restoring morality to Russia. The nation was moving toward democratic and religious freedoms until, one decade later, Vladimir Putin abruptly reversed course. He labeled most religious organizations as "foreign agents" and set in motion an aggressive plan to restore the pride of the "Russian world." Putin's alliance with the Russian Orthodox Church, and his hostility to true democracy, led to the brutal invasion of Ukraine, which had opted for freedom and democracy. Other books have analyzed the economic and social dynamics in Russia and Ukraine after 1991. This one chronicles a previously untold story: the role religion played in the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the rise of a newly autocratic Russia, and the emergence of democracy in Ukraine. What lay behind the radically different paths chosen by two former Soviet republics?