Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet leader whose reforms led to the unlooked for break-up of his own country, and to the demise of communism across central and eastern Europe, has died in Moscow aged 91.
Celebrated abroad as the saviour who delivered freedom to millions of Soviet citizens, he was often blamed at home for the chaotic years that followed, and survived long enough to watch Russia return to autocracy under the rule of Vladimir Putin.
