Is it true that the United States awarded Mikhail Gorbachev with the medal "For Victory in the Cold War"?

A photograph of the President of the USSR is widespread on the Internet, whose jacket is decorated with the Cold War Victory Commemarative medal. We checked the reliability of this picture.

The portrait of Gorbachev, who allegedly wore the American medal “For the victory in the Cold War”, can be found in various social networks and on several blog platforms: "VKontakte", Twitter, Facebook, Livejournal, "Yandex.Zen", Cont.ws and others.

To begin with, this portrait of Gorbachev with a medal on his chest is Photoshop. FACHECHERS FROM "VOKS Ukrainian" discoveredThat the original picture in 2010 was made by the photographer Veni Markovsky. On his page on Flickr there is a whole Photo report - Gorbachev is captured at the event in May 2010, and in any of the many pictures, he does not wear a medal on his jacket.

The medal depicted in edited photography still exists. However, this is not a state award - for example, on the website Medals of America you can Buy for $ 20.95. Similar rewards wear The official status is only in Louisian and Texas. The tape to the medal is also separately recognized in Alaska (in all three cases, we are only talking about the national guard). This medal is not mentioned in the list of official awards, published On the website of the US Armed Forces - there is only Cold War Recognition Certificate, which can receive military and civilians who served during the Cold War.

Note that the lack of a special medal for veterans of the Cold War is wide discussed The US is a problem. In 2019, even Congress I acted The bill on the introduction of such a reward, but for almost two years the initiative has remained without movement. According to colleagues from VOKS Ukrainian, such a situation is understandable: it is very difficult to determine exactly who is worthy of receiving a medal, and in the lists of potential awards-millions of people who have served in the American army from the mid-1940s to the early 1990s.

In 2008, Gorbachev received Freedom medal is a prestigious award presented by the US National Constitutional Center. The justification on the site of the Center says that the President of the USSR was noted "for its courageous role in the end of the dangerous, lasting decades of the Cold War and for the bestowing hope and freedom to millions of people living behind the iron curtain." Notes in the domestic media then came under headlines like “the United States will award Gorbachev for the cessation of the Cold War” (RBC) and “Gorbachev received an American medal for the end of the Cold War” (“RIA Novosti"). Nevertheless, the freedom medal is not the reward that the Soviet leader was “reconciled in a widely replicated image, and in the award motivation,“ role in the end ”is mentioned, and not“ victory ”in the confrontation of the United States and the USSR.

Most of the untruth

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. "Voks Ukrainian." Photos: Gorbachev in the United States awarded the medal "For Victory in the Cold War"
2. National Constitution Center. Mikhail Gorbachev