Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet leader who oversaw the end of the Cold War, has died at the age of 91

According to Russian news agencies, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has died at the age of 91 after a long health battle.

Tass, RIA Novosti and Interfax news agencies cited the Central Clinical Hospital. Gorbachev’s office said earlier that he was undergoing treatment in hospital after a long and serious illness. No further details were given.

FILE: Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas participate in the alliance forum in Berlin at the symposium “New Policy Forum” against the Cold War.
(Photo by AvStocki/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

Gorbachev was the leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 until its collapse in December 1991. As general secretary and president, he helped forge arms reduction agreements with the US and other Western powers and removed the Curtain of iron

Although in power for less than seven years, Gorbachev unleashed a series of impressive changes. But they quickly outgrew him and led to the collapse of the authoritarian Soviet state, the liberation of Eastern European nations from Russian domination, and the end of decades of East-West nuclear confrontation.

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His decline was humiliating. His power irretrievably diminished by an attempted coup against him in August 1991, he spent his last months in office watching republic after republic declare independence until he resigned on 25 December 1991. The Soviet Union it was forgotten a day later.

A quarter-century after the collapse, Gorbachev told The Associated Press that he had not considered using widespread force to try to hold the USSR together because he feared chaos in a nuclear country.

A photo of Mikhail Gorbachev.
(Photo by © RUSSEIL CHRISTOPHE/COLLECTION CORBIS KIPA/Corbis via Getty Images)

“The country was loaded to the brim with weapons. And it would have immediately pushed the country into a civil war,” he said.

Gorbachev won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 for his role in ending the Cold War and spent his final years collecting accolades and awards from all corners of the world. However, at home he was greatly despised.

The Russians blamed him for the implosion of the Soviet Union in 1991, a once-fearful superpower whose territory fractured into 15 separate nations. His former allies abandoned him and made him a scapegoat for the country’s problems.

“Mikhail Gorbachev is as respected in the West as he is loathed in Russia,” former Defense Intelligence Agency official Rebekah Koffler told Fox News. “For the Westerners it brought openness and reconstruction (glasnost and perestroika) and for the Russians, it destroyed the USSR.

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The official Tass news agency reported that Gorbachev will be buried at Moscow’s Novodevichy Cemetery next to his wife.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.