Unless the goal of the Cold War was simply to dismantle the Soviet Union and its closest allies, I don’t think that it’s perfectly accurate to say that it ended (in either the 1990s or elsewhen).
The anticommunists continued to struggle against popular communist parties in the Russian Federation and elsewhere, they are trying and failing to dismantle the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Republic of Cuba, the liberal reforms in the People’s Rep. of China and the Socialist Rep. of Vietnam were poor substitutes for overthrowal, and so far the anticommunists haven’t balkanized the Russian Federation.
If we view the Cold War as essentially a complex class war (which would be quite reasonable), then it certainly never ended, or even been on pause.
In a way it never ended I guess. I have thought about that.
But to me, this is Cold War II, and the starting point to me is after Pelosi visited Taiwan. Though other starting points could be NATO overthrow of Libya, 2014 Ukraine coup, or the beginning of Russia’s intervention in Ukraine.
It’s important to keep in mind that Putin until around 2004 (Ukraine orange revolution being the trigger) was very much willing to work with the west and wanted Russia to be a part of Europe. It was even still a member of G8 until 2014.