Mikhail Gorbachev, last leader of the Soviets, dies at 91

On Tuesday, Mikhail Gorbachev, who ended the Cold War without bloodshed, but failed to prevent the collapse of the Soviet Union, died 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, thereby bringing about the reunification of Germany.

However, his 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.

"Mikhail Gorbachev passed away tonight after a serious and protracted disease," said Russia's Central Clinical Hospital.

Putin expressed "his deepest condolences", Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Interfax.

"Tomorrow he will send a telegram of condolences to his family and friends," he said.

In 2018, Putin said he would reverse the Soviet Union's disintegration if he could, news agencies reported.

World leaders were quick to pay their tributes as well. European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said Gorbachev, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990, had paved the way for a free Europe.

US President Joe Biden said he had believed in "glasnost and perestroika — openness and restructuring — not as mere slogans, but as the path forward for the people of the Soviet Union after so many years of isolation and deprivation".

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, citing Putin's attack on Ukraine, said Gorbachev's "tireless commitment to opening up Soviet society remains an example to us all".

Western partnerships

After decades of Cold War tensions and confrontations, Gorbachev brought the Soviet Union closer to the West, than at any point since World War Two.

"He gave freedom to hundreds of millions of people in Russia and around it, and also half of Europe," said former Russian liberal opposition leader Grigory Yavlinsky.

"Few leaders in history have had such a decisive influence on their time."

However, Gorbachev saw his legacy wrecked late in life, as the conflict with 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.

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.

"We are all orphans now. But not everyone realizes it," said Alexei Venediktov, head of a liberal media radio outlet that closed down after coming under pressure over its coverage of the Ukraine war.

When pro-democracy protests rocked Soviet bloc nations in communist Eastern Europe in 1989, Gorbachev refrained from using force — unlike previous Kremlin leaders who had sent tanks to crush uprisings in Hungary in 1956, and Czechoslovakia in 1968.

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 — who was briefly deposed in an August 1991 coup by party hardliners — struggled vainly to prevent that collapse.