https://www.reuters.com/world/mikhail-gorbachev-who-ended-cold-war-dies-aged-92-agencies-2022-08-30/ Skip to main content Reuters home * World * Business * Legal * Markets * Breakingviews * Technology * Investigations * More My View Register August 30, 202210:44 PM UTCLast Updated ago * World Last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who ended the Cold War, dies aged 91 By David Ljunggren * * * * * 4 minute read Scenes of the Berlin Wall at the Newseum Russian army parade marking the World War II anniversary in Moscow Former Soviet President Gorbachev visits the former Berlin Wall border crossing point Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin 1/8 Moscow - Russia - 09/05/2017 - Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev attends the parade marking the World War II anniversary in Moscow. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin Read More Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Aug 30 (Reuters) - Mikhail Gorbachev, who ended the Cold War without bloodshed but failed to prevent the collapse of the Soviet Union, died on Tuesday at the age of 91, hospital officials in Moscow said. Gorbachev, the last Soviet president, forged arms reduction deals with the United States and partnerships with Western powers to remove the Iron Curtain that had divided Europe since World War Two and bring about the reunification of Germany. But his broad internal reforms helped weaken the Soviet Union to the point where it fell apart, a moment that President Vladimir Putin has called the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe" of the twentieth century. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register "Mikhail Gorbachev passed away tonight after a serious and protracted disease," Russia's Central Clinical Hospital said in a statement. Putin expressed "his deepest condolences", Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Interfax news agency. "Tomorrow he will send a telegram of condolences to his family and friends," he said. Putin said in 2018 he would reverse the collapse of the Soviet Union if he could, news agencies reported at the time. World leaders were quick to pay tribute. European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said Gorbachev had opened the way for a free Europe. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, citing Putin's invasion of Ukraine, said Gorbachev's "tireless commitment to opening up Soviet society remains an example to us all". After decades of Cold War tension and confrontation, Gorbachev brought the Soviet Union closer to the West than at any point since World War Two. But he saw that legacy wrecked in the final months of his life, as the invasion of Ukraine brought Western sanctions crashing down on Moscow, and politicians in both Russia and the West began to speak of a new Cold War. "Gorbachev died in a symbolic way when his life's work, freedom, was effectively destroyed by Putin," said Andrei Kolesnikov, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Gorbachev won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. He will be buried in Moscow's Novodevichy Cemetery next to his wife Raisa, who died in 1999, said Tass, citing the foundation that the ex-Soviet leader set up once he left office. When pro-democracy protests swept across the Soviet bloc nations of communist Eastern Europe in 1989, he refrained from using force - unlike previous Kremlin leaders who had sent tanks to crush uprisings in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. But the protests fuelled aspirations for autonomy in the 15 republics of the Soviet Union, which disintegrated over the next two years in chaotic fashion. read more Gorbachev - who was briefly deposed in an August 1991 coup by party hardliners - struggled vainly to prevent that collapse. "The era of Gorbachev is the era of perestroika, the era of hope, the era of our entry into a missile-free world ... but there was one miscalculation: we did not know our country well," said Vladimir Shevchenko, who headed Gorbachev's protocol office when he was Soviet leader. "Our union fell apart, that was a tragedy and his tragedy," RIA news agency cited him as saying. On becoming general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party in 1985, aged just 54, he had set out to revitalise the system by introducing limited political and economic freedoms, but his reforms spun out of control. read more "He was a good man - he was a decent man. I think his tragedy is in a sense that he was too decent for the country he was leading," said Gorbachev biographer William Taubman, a professor emeritus at Amherst College in Massachusetts. Gorbachev's policy of "glasnost" - free speech - allowed previously unthinkable criticism of the party and the state, but also emboldened nationalists who began to press for independence in the Baltic republics of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and elsewhere. Many Russians never forgave Gorbachev for the turbulence that his reforms unleashed, considering the subsequent plunge in their living standards too high a price to pay for democracy. Vladimir Rogov, a Russian-appointed official in a part of Ukraine now occupied by pro-Moscow forces, said Gorbachev had "deliberately led the (Soviet) Union to its demise" and called him a traitor. "He gave us all freedom - but we don't know what to do with it," liberal economist Ruslan Grinberg told the armed forces news outlet Zvezda after visiting Gorbachev in hospital in June. "Gorbachev lived to see some of his worst fears realised and his brightest dreams drowned in blood and filth. But he will be remembered fondly by historians, and one day - I believe it - by Russians," said Cold War historian Sergey Radchenko. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Reporting by David Ljunggren in Ottawa, Mark Trevelyan in London, Roselle Chen in New York and Elaine Monaghan Writing by Guy Faulconbridge and Mark Trevelyan Editing by Kevin Liffey, Matthew Lewis and Rosalba O'Brien Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. David Ljunggren Thomson Reuters Covers Canadian political, economic and general news as well as breaking news across North America, previously based in London and Moscow and a winner of Reuters' Treasury scoop of the year. * * * World * Factbox: Europe's alternatives if Russia cuts off gas supply, article with imageWorld * August 30, 2022 * 2:41 PM UTC The Nord Stream 1 pipeline that transports Russian gas to Germany will undergo maintenance from Aug. 31-Sept. 2, prompting concerns about supply to Europe if the outage is extended. * United StatesBiden condemns 'attacks on FBI' after search of Trump's Florida home, article with image8:28 PM UTC * AmericasRestoring Chevron operations in Venezuela depends on U.S. -minister, article with gallery9:44 PM UTC * United StatesMichigan storms leave over 340,000 people without power, kill teenager, article with image9:27 PM UTC * WorldAnalysis: France braces for uncertain winter as nuclear power shortage looms, article with image1:44 PM UTC Site Index Browse * World * Business * Legal * Markets * Breakingviews * Technology * Investigations , opens new tab * Lifestyle About Reuters * About Reuters , opens new tab * Careers , opens new tab * Reuters News Agency , opens new tab * Brand Attribution Guidelines , opens new tab * Reuters Leadership , opens new tab * Reuters Fact Check , opens new tab * Reuters Diversity Report , opens new tab Stay Informed * Download the App , opens new tab * Newsletters , opens new tab Information you can trust Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the world's largest multimedia news provider, reaching billions of people worldwide every day. 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