Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev is being buried today in a relatively peaceful ceremony after the Kremlin refused a state funeral for the man who helped end the Cold War.
Gorbachev died on Tuesday at the age of 91 and will be buried with his wife Raisa at Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.
The farewell ceremony will take place in the Hall of Pillars of the House of Trade Unions, an iconic mansion near the Kremlin that has served as a location for state funerals since Soviet times, the Associated Press (AP) news agency reported.
Hundreds of people lined up to silently pass Gorbachev’s open coffin, flanked by honor guards under the Russian flag in the historic hall.
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Despite the choice of location, the Kremlin no longer called it a state funeral, as it required Putin’s presence, just as Moscow is said to have invited foreign leaders.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov explained that Putin will be absent due to his schedule, but that the ceremony will have “elements of a state funeral”, such as a “guard of honor”.
On Thursday, Putin laid flowers on the coffin of the last leader of the USSR, in the hospital in Moscow where he died.
Viktor Orbán present
Hungarian nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, isolated in the European Union while boosting gas trade with Russia, has left for Moscow today to attend the funeral of the last leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev.
Viktor Orbán will “pay tribute to the late Mikhail Gorbachev” and will be accompanied by a Hungarian delegation, the secretary of state for international communications said on his Twitter account, a day after the announcement by Russian giant Gazprom of the cessation of Nord gas Electricity, essential for gas supply in Europe.
Revered worldwide for bringing down the Iron Curtain, Gorbachev is also denounced by many in his country who hold him responsible for the economic collapse of the Soviet Union following his reforms that helped end the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Soviet Union accelerated.
Putin, who went so far as to deplore the collapse of the Soviet Union as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,” avoided outspoken personal criticism of Gorbachev, but repeatedly accused him of failing to obtain written commitments from the West that expansion of NATO to the east .
The issue has paralyzed relations between Russia and the West for decades and fueled tensions that erupted this year when the Russian leader sent troops to Ukraine on February 24.
In a letter of condolence, Putin described Gorbachev as a man who “has had a huge impact on the course of world history”: “He deeply realized that reforms were needed and tried to offer his solutions to the acute problems,” Putin said. the AP.
Gorbachev’s planned funeral contrasts sharply with a lavish state funeral given in 2007 to Boris Yeltsin, the first post-Soviet Russian leader to pave the way for Putin to win the presidency by stepping down.
Source: El heraldo
