Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, has died aged 91, Russian state media reported on Tuesday, citing Moscow’s central clinical hospital.
Gorbachev died following a “serious and long-term illness”, the hospital said, according to the report. He will be buried at Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow, the final resting place for hundreds of Russian and Soviet dignitaries, alongside his wife Raisa, who died in 1999.
Worldwide reaction to the death of the last surviving world leader involved in ending the cold war was a reflection of Gorbachev’s complicated legacy, one that won him international praise for halting decades of Soviet authoritarianism and allowing a divided Europe to reunite peaceably but left him reviled at home for presiding over the bloc’s acrimonious collapse in 1991.