Russian news outlets say that former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev has died at the age of 91 after a long battle with his health. The Tass, RIA Novosti, and Interfax news agencies all talked about the Central Clinical Hospital. His office had said earlier that Gorbachev was getting treatment in the hospital after a serious and long-lasting illness. There was no more information given.
Gorbachev was the president of the Soviet Union from 1985 until it broke up in December 1991. As general secretary and president, he helped negotiate arms reduction deals with the US and other Western superpowers. He also helped bring down the Iron Curtain.
Even though he was president for less than seven years, Gorbachev started a huge number of reforms. But they caught up with him quickly. This led to the fall of the totalitarian Soviet Union, the freeing of the countries of Eastern Europe from Russian rule, and the end of decades of nuclear war between the East and the West.
It was bad for him to lose. In his last months in office, he watched as one republic after another declared independence. He left office on December 25, 1991, after an attempted coup against him in August 1991 had destroyed his power for good. The Soviet Union stopped being a thing the next day.
A quarter of a century after the fall, Gorbachev told the Associated Press that he had not thought of using a lot of force to try to keep the USSR together because he was afraid of chaos in a nuclear country. “The country had all the weapons it needed. Also, it would have led to a civil war in the United States “added he.
Gorbachev helped end the Cold War and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 for his work. In his later years, he spent his time collecting honours and awards from all over the world. But at home, most people didn’t like him.
The Russians blamed him for the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Soviet Union was a once-terrifying superpower whose territory was split into 15 different countries. His old friends turned against him, and the problems of the country fell on him.
“Mikhail Gorbachev is loved in the West and hated in Russia,” says Rebekah Koffler, who used to work for the Defense Intelligence Agency.
