The former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev is said to be 'seriously ill' with a kidney ailment. At 91, the leader of the former USSR is now on dialysis, said Russian news outlet Mash.
A winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990, Gorbachev ushered in a new phase of reconstruction and openness in the Soviet communist system known as "perestroika" and "glasnost". The Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991.
A spokesman for the Gorbachev Foundation, Vladimir Polyakov, told Life News that Mr Gorbachev had been undergoing treatment for several years due to kidney problems. He did not comment on the seriousness of the statesman’s current condition.
Gorbachev’s wife Raisa, the former Soviet first lady, died in 1999. It was announced at the weekend that Gennady Burbulis, the senior Russian official who confirmed the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, died suddenly on Sunday (June 19) at the age of 76 in Azerbaijan, reports MirrorOnline.
Two other leaders who signed the death certificate of the USSR, Ukraine’s Leonid Kravchuk and then Belarus leader Stanislav Shushkevich, both died last month aged 88 and 87 respectively. The other participant - first Russian president Boris Yeltsin - died in 2007.
Mr Gorbachev's illness has come to light as critics have accused Russian president Vladimir Putin of plotting the rebuilding of the USSR following his invasion of Ukraine. Last week, it was reported that an old Soviet nuclear missile base in Belarus is thought to be being prepared to host Putin's latest arsenal of deadly atomic weapons.
An “inspection” of the abandoned 369th missile regiment facility took place on Sunday, June 14, it has been claimed. The revelation of a recent “inspection” at the base came from the Belaruski Hajun Telegram channel, which monitors military activity.
In Soviet times, missiles that could cause “dozens of Hiroshimas” were based there. This might be the case again in coming times, though this would be even more devastating if Putin’s hypersonic nuclear missiles like Sarmat - Satan-2 - and Tsirkon (Zircon) are deployed.
A referendum in Belarus in February permitted the country to host nuclear weapons once more, and permanently act as a base for Russian troops. The old nuclear weapons base, Zhitkovichi, is near Cheretyanka village, in the Gomel region of Belarus which borders Ukraine.
Military unit 42691, call sign ‘Sad’, hosted nuclear weapons from 1959 until 1996, five years after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Belarus in 1996 gave up its inherited nuclear arsenal which was returned to Moscow.
An Mi-8 helicopter of the Belarusian Armed Forces took off from an air base in Machyulishchi to former military unit 41738 near the village of Volma (Minsk region) where so-called 'Platform 400. Dome' is located, the command centre of Russia's Armed Forces in Belarus, said the channel.
