Russian President Vladimir Putin described the collapse of the Soviet Union as "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century". It was a noiseless collapse. Since then, the 15 countries between the Baltic Sea and the Pamir mountain range have gone their own way. Ruslan Semjonowitsch Grinberg, a renowned economist and trusted confidant of Gorbachev, believes that all successor states act on the same principle: maximum economic cooperation with Russia... see more