mikhail gorbachev

President Vladimir Putin was glaringly absent at the funeral for Mikhail Gorbachev, whose leadership helped end the Cold War.
The low-key funeral reflects the Kremlin’s uneasiness about the legacy of Gorbachev, who is despised by many at home for the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union's last leader reportedly earned nearly $1 million even though he refused to eat the pizza on camera.
Credited as the man most responsible for the end of the Cold War, Gorbachev was beloved and loathed in equal measure.
Russian news agencies are reporting that former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has died at 91.
Heads of state past and present have remembered the former president, who has died at the age of 94.
"All agreements aimed at nuclear disarmament ... must be preserved, for the sake of preserving life on earth," the former Soviet leader said.
Deng believed that the most urgent task was to improve people's livelihood. In his view, all other reforms, including political ones, had to serve this primary goal. He believed that copying the Western model and placing political reform on the top of the agenda, like the Soviets were doing at the time, was utterly foolish. In fact, that was exactly Deng's comment on Gorbachev after their meeting: "This man may look smart but in fact is stupid."