Former Soviet Leader Gorbachev Passes On At 91

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, the former Soviet leader who ended the cold war, died in Moscow aged 91. “Mikhail Gorbachev has passed away.

Gorbachev was the most important world figure of the last quarter of the 20th century. Almost singlehandedly he brought an end to 40 years of east-west confrontation in Europe and liberated the world from the danger of nuclear conflagration.

World leaders are paying tribute to Gorbachev.

The Russian president Vladimir Putin expresses his deepest condolences, a Kremlin spokesman told the Interfax news agency.

US President Joe Biden described Gorbachev as a man of “remarkable vision” who led his country on the path to reform. “These were the acts of a rare leader – one with the imaginationy to see that a different future was possible and the courage to risk his entire career to achieve it,” Biden said in a statement. “The result was a safer world and greater freedom for millions of people.”

French President Emmanuel Macron described Gorbachev as “a man of peace whose choices opened a path to freedom for Russians”. “His commitment to peace in Europe changed our common history,” he added.

Boris Johnson, the outgoing British prime minister, said he “always admired the courage and integrity he showed in bringing the cold war to a peaceful conclusion.”

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said former Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev “changed the world for the better”, in a tribute message posted on Wednesday afternoon following the death of the last leader of the Soviet Union.

"He freed the nations of Eastern Europe from the prison of Soviet rule, and helped bring an end to the Cold War,” Albanese wrote in a message posted to Facebook, calling Gorbachev “a man of warmth, hope, resolve and enormous courage”.

With his death we have lost one of the true giants of the 20th century."