Russian President Vladimir Putin famously described the Soviet Union’s collapse as the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.” On Wednesday, he marked Mikhail Gorbachev’s death with only muted praise for the leader who oversaw the Communist state’s demise.
Putin called his Kremlin predecessor “a statesman who had an enormous impact on the course of world history” in a short condolence telegram to family and friends published on the Kremlin’s website. Gorbachev led the country during “a period of complex, dramatic changes,” Putin said in the message that also praised his charitable and humanitarian activities in later years.
Gorbachev’s funeral ceremony will be held on Saturday in central Moscow, his family said. The Kremlin said it couldn’t confirm if Putin will attend. The Soviet leader, who was unpopular with many Russians who blamed him for the economic chaos that followed the U.S.S.R.’s collapse, will be buried in Moscow’s Novodevichy cemetery next to his wife, Raisa, according to the Gorbachev Foundation.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Gorbachev’s “romantic” hopes of a honeymoon with the U.S. and its allies never materialized. “The bloodthirstiness of our opponents has come to light and it’s good we realized that in time,” Peskov said.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz took a different view of the reformist leader, who died late Tuesday aged 91, as the man who helped dismantle the Iron Curtain and made it possible for German reunification to take place, while enabling greater freedom at home.
“We know that he died at a time when not only democracy in Russia failed — there is no other way to describe the current situation there — but also when Russia and Russian President Putin were digging new rifts in Europe and waging a terrible war against a neighboring country, Ukraine,” Scholz said.
Putin, whose 22-year rule is already nearly four times as long as Gorbachev’s, has overturned much of the Soviet leader’s legacy of “glasnost,” or openness, that eased decades of state secrecy and repression. The former KGB agent has overseen a massive crackdown on critics, who’ve either been jailed or have fled into exile, and unleashed Europe’s largest conflict since World War II with his invasion of Ukraine.
Gorbachev criticized Putin’s long grip on power. Soon after Russian forces began their assault on Ukraine in February, his foundation called in a statement for “an early cessation of hostilities and immediate start of peace negotiations.”
