[17], Antnio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, described Gorbachev as "a one-of-a-kind statesman who changed the course of history", going on to say that "[h]e did more than any other individual to bring about the peaceful end of the Cold War". He wasn't a young man then, and as time has aged the former official into his 90s, he's understandably and subsequently suffered a number of the major health issues that often accompany that period of one's life. On 25 December 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev announced his resignation as Soviet president. Tomas Dapkus and Ivan Nechepurenko contributed reporting. President Emmanuel Macron of France also posted on social media, calling Mr. Gorbachev a man of peace whose choices have opened a path of freedom for the Russians and whose commitment to peace in Europe changed our common history.. Few high-level Soviet officials had the courage to admit that things needed to change. Ukrainians were never fascinated by Gorbachev, said Yevhen Mahda, the director of the Institute of World Policy, a research organization in Kyiv. With it was glasnost or openness, a concept encompassing liberalism and pluralism after decades of censorship and official lies. In several notable speeches he accused him of turning the United Russia party into a bad copy of the Communist party, and of blatant authoritarianism. General Motors followed later that year with a major investment to build a new sport utility vehicle designed by a local partner. [8][9], A large public turnout resulted in public viewing of Gorbachev's casket and encased body being extended from two hours to four hours. Mikhail Gorbachev, Soviet leader who ended the Cold War, dead at 91 - CBC These were the acts of a rare leader one with the imagination to see that a different future was possible and the courage to risk his entire career to achieve it, the US president said in a statement. By Philip Elliott. The attempted takeover crumbled without any formal announcement from its leaders, who sent tanks into Moscow and declared themselves in command. Mikhail Gorbachev's death is being mourned by the West as the loss of a champion of freedom who helped end the Cold War. He gave freedom, Mr. Grigorian added. The whole world should know about this, what exactly was being plotted, he said, and what it is that they did not succeed in getting from me.. A serious dialogue is therefore in order. In it, the last Soviet leader takes his granddaughter to the newly opened American fast-food restaurant near Red Square, a move meant to show Russias inexorable modernization. Mikhail Gorbachev, former Soviet president who took down the Iron Mikhail Gorbachev, the first and only president of the Soviet Union, has died at the age of 91, in Moscow. American and South Korean troops have been put on their highest alert in three years. Despite Zhao's condolences, Gorbachev's death had mixed reactions in China, where he was credited with normalizing Sino-Soviet relations, but at the same time negatively viewed for bringing about the dissolution of the Soviet Union, as the Chinese Communist Party views the fall of the Soviet Union a "major ideological catastrophe that cast a shadow over their own future.