Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has died, the Tass and Sputnik news agency reported on the 30th (local time).
91 years old.
According to reports, the Central Clinical Hospital of Russia said, “Ex-President Gorbachev died that evening after a long battle with the disease.”
As the first president of the Soviet Union and former general secretary of the Communist Party, Gorbachev promoted the perestroika policy that overthrew the tyrannical socialist system.
He is highly regarded in the West as a leading figure in the dissolution of the Cold War, as he virtually tolerated the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the unification of East and West Germany the following year.
However, in December 1991, when the Soviet Union, which suffered political turmoil due to a military coup attempt amid worsening economic difficulties, was disbanded, Gorbachev completely lost power.
Earlier this year, it was reported that he was spending the rest of his life in a dacha, a country house on the outskirts of Moscow.
/yunhap news