Good morning. News broke last night of the death of Mikhail Gorbachev, one of the crucial figures of the late 20th century. The last president of the Soviet Union passed away in Moscow after what was described as a “difficult and protracted illness” at the age of 91.
Remembered above all in the west for his decision to allow the fall of the Berlin Wall without violence and with it the end of the cold war, his passing appears all the more resonant for coinciding with Vladimir Putin’s brutal reassertion of Russian power in Ukraine. But while, as many of the tributes last night suggested, he was feted in the west for his role in the break-up of the Soviet Union, that is a legacy he did not seek – and he is a far more contested figure in his own country.
