Mikhail Gorbachev will have a state funeral which will take place in Moscow on Saturday.
The news agency Tass writes, according to which the Kremlin, despite the coldness shown by the death at 91 years of the last secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, would have given the ok to the ceremony.
The last Soviet leader disappeared in hospital "after a serious and prolonged illness" , as written in a statement issued overnight by the Central Hospital Clinic in Moscow.
In early March, two weeks after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dmitry Muratov, who visited him at the clinic, reportedly said "that everything possible must be done to stop the threat of war. nuclear".
The protagonist of the detente with the West , together with the internal reforms of the USSR, had arrived at the helm of the Soviet Union in 1985: his search for better relations with the United States and Western Europe, and the agreements for the reduction of the nuclear arsenal with US President Ronald Reagan, had made him an idol of foreign governments and public opinion, as well as getting him the Nobel Peace Prize .
But at home he did not enjoy as much luck : for many Russians he was the man who precisely with his reforms had led to the collapse not only of a repressive regime, but also of a country that had reached its maximum power under the USSR. and then it had dissolved to make way for the advent of ultraliberal Russia of the Yeltsin era, when the economic conditions of much of the population had deteriorated to dramatic levels and the economy had fallen into the hands of unscrupulous businessmen and criminal groups. The current President Vladimir Putin had found his fortune on this discontent.
THE REACTIONS - In the morning Putin broke the silence with a message of condolence to the family. Mikhail Gorbachev, he wrote, "had to face great challenges in foreign policy, in the economy and in the social sphere, he deeply understood that reforms were necessary and tried to propose his own solutions to burning problems ". "I would also like to underline - adds Putin - that great humanitarian, charitable and enlightenment activity that Gorbachev has conducted in all the last few years. I ask you to accept the sincere words of solidarity and empathy for the loss you have suffered".
"Mikhail Gorbachev has marked the recent history of Russia, of Europe, of the world - declared Prime Minister Mario Draghi -. After a life in the Communist Party, he put an end to the experience of the Soviet Union with courage and determination and tried to building a new season of transparency, rights, freedom. His desire for peace, his opposition to an imperialist vision of Russia earned him the Nobel Prize. These are very timely messages in the face of the tragedy of the invasion of Ukraine ".
(Unioneonline / D)