MOSCOW, Russia (Washington Insider Magazine)- The Gorbachev Foundation reports that Mikhail Gorbachev, the last president of the Soviet Union and a reformer who effectively ended the Cold War and guide his country from communism to capitalism, died on Tuesday at the age of 91.
The Central Clinical Hospital reported that Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev passed away this evening after a severe and prolonged illness.
He will rest in the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow with his wife, Raisa Gorbachev, according to NBC NEWS.
Gorbachev was born in the village of Privolnoye and was brought up as a devoted communist during World War II. He graduated from Moscow State University with a law degree in 1955 and rose through the Communist Party’s levels until being named general secretary in March 1985.
Large-scale changes like “glasnost” and “perestroika,” implemented by Gorbachev, were meant to improve government transparency and revive the Soviet Union’s slow economy.
In contrast to the perceptions of their predecessors, Gorbachev and his wife were also renowned for their fashionable appeal. They were branded “the Gucci couple” by The Daily Mail.
Gorbachev did not mobilize Soviet tanks to suppress the uprisings in 1989 when pro-democracy demonstrations started in Poland and spread throughout the Soviet Union. He received the Nobel Peace Prize the following year for his contributions to the Cold War’s end.
As the captive Baltic states of Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia began to separate and other countries that had been under Moscow’s control for a long time, notably Ukraine, sought freedom, the Soviet Union soon started to fall apart.
On December 25, 1991, Gorbachev announced his resignation, months after a failed coup. A day later, the Soviet Union was dissolved.
The assault on Ukraine by Russian President Vladimir Putin “disappointed” Mikhail Gorbachev, according to Alexey Venediktov, a close friend and journalist of Gorbachev.
According to Venediktov, Gorbachev’s legacy is being ruined, he said in an interview with the outlet.
Putin expressed his “deep condolences” on his death on Tuesday, according to the Russian state news agency Tass.
President of the European Union Commission Ursula von der Leyen, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, and other dignitaries praised Gorbachev’s leadership on Tuesday, asserting that he changed the course of history and paved the way for a free Europe.
Gorbachev was a remarkable leader, according to U.S. President Joe Biden, because he had the foresight to recognise that a better future was conceivable and the willingness to risk his whole career to accomplish it.
