The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union

by Serhii Plokhy

While Yeltsin vacationed in Sochi, the struggling Soviet president gained unexpected support from two of his staunchest allies: the mayors of Moscow, Gavriil Popov, and of St. Petersburg, Anatolii Sobchak. Their millions of citizens depended on food supplies from the Union republics to survive the winter, which required the prompt restoration of all-Union ties. Gorbachev was their only hope to achieve that. “Leningrad has been taken off the Union and republican supply network; we have ceased to receive provisions from Ukraine and Kazakhstan,” reported Sobchak at a meeting of Gorbachev’s political council on October 2. “In return for what we supply, I could feed ten Leningrads. If this does not change, I will forbid the shipping of tractors to Ukraine and cut off supplies to the republics that do not carry out their obligations.” Vladimir Putin, then Sobchak’s aide in charge of foreign relations, later recalled Sobchak’s anger at what was going on in Moscow. “What are they doing? Why are they destroying the country?” he said to Putin.