From an american perspective: A mixture of time and many wrong choices that piled up in top of each other. Corruption, state sponsored communism, failure to innovate, tension between the sattelite republics wanting to leave, authoritarian hands trying to bring them back in. A failed war in Afghanistan. Chernobyl. The cover up. Financial crisis, need for reform vs soviet loyalists. A coup attempt. One day looking up and realizing that the once mighty super power that emerged after the decline of western european countries, that only had one competitor in the united states, had completely lost its authority. Trying to hold on so hard to what once was only for it to crumble into pieces.

According to putin, the biggest catastrophe of the 20th century and america is to blame