Farewell to Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, who died at the age of 91 .
The announcement was made by the Central Clinical Hospital of Russia, where the former head of the Kremlin was hospitalized.
"Last night, after a serious and prolonged illness , Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev died", reads the statement released by the clinic and reported by the Tass agency.
The last general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , a position he held from 1985 to 1991, Gorbachev was born on March 2, 1931 in Privol'noe, a rural town in southwestern Russia. He was the protagonist of the events that led to the end of the USSR and the reunification of Germany. For his contribution to the end of the Cold War, in 1989 he was awarded the Otto Hahn Medal for Peace and in 1990 the Nobel Peace Prize.
With him, the USSR, now on its way to disintegration, launched the so-called Perestroika and Glasnost , or a series of political, social and economic reforms to modernize the Soviet Union, also from the point of view of relations with the West, which - as mentioned - they did not prevent its dissolution between the end of the 1980s and the 1990s.
REACTIONS - At the news of his death, Russian President Vladimir Putin limited himself to expressing his deepest condolences and the Kremlin explained that the current leader of Moscow "will send a telegram to the relatives and friends of the deceased". From what is learned, no state funeral will be organized for Gorbachev.
A "cold" tribute to a controversial figure in the eyes of Putinian Russia, precisely for having led the country to change and to a period considered to be of decline and excessive pro-Western openness.
"With the death of Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev, a figure who has profoundly marked European history and world balance in the last part of the twentieth century disappears", said the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella , adding that "the debt towards him is great, especially on the part of Europeans, "commented US President Joe Biden .
Condolences also from Ursula von der Leyen , president of the European Commission, who spoke of Gorbachev as "a trustworthy leader who paved the way for a free Europe".
On the other hand, the judgment from China is very hard. Mikhail Gorbachev is a " tragic figure who has satisfied the needs of the US and the West without morals ", responsible for "serious errors" and "naive" in assessing the international situation, causing "chaos in the internal economic order": a political parable which represents a "reminder" for other countries to be cautious of the West, reads the Global Times, the People's Daily tabloid.
(Unioneonline / lf)