Former and final Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev dead at 91
Mikhail Gorbachev, who served as the final president of the Soviet Union, has died in Moscow.
The 91-year-old was pronounced dead on Tuesday after battling “severe and prolonged illness,” according to RIA Novosti.
The details of his illness-induced demise have not been made public.
Gorbachev joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) as a student and rose in the ranks quickly. After the death of leader Konstantin Chernenko, he became the general secretary of the CPSU.
He is credited with helping bring the Cold War to an end, and played a key role in the USSR’s diplomatic and foreign relations, and focusing on the region’s socialist reformation.
“I see myself as a man who started the reforms that were necessary for the country and for Europe and the world,” he told Associated Press in 1992, just after the fall of the Soviet Union.
“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 is survived by his daughter Irina Mikhailovna Virganskaya.
More to come…
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