The funeral of the Soviet Union’s last leader Mikhail Gorbachev is taking place in Moscow on Saturday, a minimal ceremony that President Vladimir Putin will not attend, a sign of his controversial heritage in Russia. A great political figure of the 20th century, Gorbachev died Tuesday evening at the age of 91 following a “long and serious illness”, according to the hospital where he was treated.
He made history by precipitating, in spite of himself, the disappearance of the Soviet empire in 1991, while he was trying to save it with democratic and economic reforms, thus ending the Cold War. Hailed in the West as a man of peace, Gorbachev is seen by many in Russia as responsible for Moscow’s geopolitical downgrade and the years of political, economic and moral crisis that followed the fall of the USSR.
A sign of this disaffection, no day of national mourning has been announced, even if “national funeral elements” will be present at the burial of Mikhail Gorbachev, in particular an “honor guard”, underlined the Kremlin.