Ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev dies aged 91

Mikhail Gorbachev, who as the last leader of the Soviet Union waged a losing battle to salvage a crumbling empire but produced extraordinary reforms that led to the end of the Cold War, has died at the age of 91.

"Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev died this evening after a serious and long illness," the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow said on Tuesday, quoted by the Interfax, TASS and RIA Novosti news agencies.

"President [Vladimir] Putin expresses his deep sympathies over the death of Mikhail Gorbachev. In the morning he will send a telegram of condolences to his family and friends," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agencies.

Gorbachev was "a one-of-a-kind statesman who changed the course of history. He did more than any other individual to bring about the peaceful end of the Cold War," UN chief Antonio Guterres said in a statement.

"I'm saddened to hear of the death of Gorbachev. I always admired the courage and integrity he showed in bringing the Cold War to a peaceful conclusion," British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Twitter. 

French President Emmanuel Macron praised Gorbachev as a "man of peace".

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.

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 a chaotic fashion.

Gorbachev struggled in vain to prevent that collapse.

A quarter-century after the collapse, Gorbachev told The Associated Press that he had not considered using widespread force to try to keep the USSR together because he feared chaos in the nuclear country. 

"The country was loaded to the brim with weapons. And it would have immediately pushed the country into a civil war," he said. 

Turbulence from his reforms

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.

His 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.

"I see myself as a man who started the reforms that were necessary for the country and for Europe and the world," Gorbachev told The AP in a 1992 interview shortly after he left office. 

"I am often asked, would I have started it all again if I had to repeat it? Yes, indeed. And with more persistence and determination," he said. 

Gorbachev won the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in ending the Cold War and spent his later years collecting accolades and awards from all corners of the world. 

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.

His run for president in 1996 was a national joke, and he polled less than 1 percent of the vote.

'He gave us all freedom'

In 1997, he resorted to making a TV ad for Pizza Hut to earn money for his charitable foundation. His former allies deserted him and made him a scapegoat for the country's troubles. 

"In the ad, he should take a pizza, divide it into 15 slices like he divided up our country, and then show how to put it back together again," quipped Anatoly Lukyanov, a one-time Gorbachev supporter. 

Gorbachev won a Grammy in 2004 along with former US President Bill Clinton and Italian actress Sophia Loren for their recording of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, and the United Nations named him a Champion of the Earth in 2006 for his environmental advocacy. 

Gorbachev had a daughter, Irina, and two granddaughters.

After visiting Gorbachev in hospital on June 30, liberal economist Ruslan Grinberg told the armed forces news outlet Zvezda: "He gave us all freedom — but we don't know what to do with it."

Gorbachev will be buried at Moscow's Novodevichy cemetery next to his wife, Tass reported.

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