As a point of comparison, as the Soviet Union was unraveling in 1991, President George H.W. Bush nominated Robert Strauss as ambassador to Moscow. Strauss was a Washington uberlobbyist with essentially no knowledge of Russia. ..…

Lithuania became the first Soviet republic in March 1990 to declare independence from Moscow. The Soviet Union was formally dissolved in December 1991. . Fourteen civilians were killed by the Soviet army in January 1991, prosecutors say, all but one of them during the storming of the state..…