INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, has died
freeing of Eastern European nations from Russian domination and the end of decades of East-West nuclear confrontation."Today in the evening
(Tuesday), after a long and serious illness, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev passed away," the Central Clinical Hospital (TSKB) in Moscow said
in a statement cited by Russian state-owned news agencies, according to Euro News.Gorbachev -- born into a poor peasant family of Ukrainian
and Russian heritage -- may have had a greater impact on the second half of the 20th century than any other political figure.Taking over the
USSR in 1985, when he was just 54, Gorbachev tried to breathe new life into the ailing empire by opening it up to the world and introducing
again if I had to repeat it? Yes, indeed
arms control deals with the empire's nemesis the US, ended the brutal Soviet war in Afghanistan and did not intervene when eastern European
to the transformation he envisioned when he became the Soviet leader in March 1985.His former allies deserted him and made Gorbachev a
Ukraine, said Gorbachev had "deliberately led the [Soviet] Union to its demise," labelling him a traitor.From 1991 onwards, Gorbachev was
marginalised and sidelined in Russian politics, despite trying to stage a political comeback in 1996 in presidential elections, where he
conflict, Gorbachev's foundation called for a "cessation of hostilities" in Ukraine and "immediate peace negotiations".In recent weeks, the
