EU country’s leader attends Gorbachev funeral
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is in Moscow for the funeral of former USSR president Mikhail Gorbachev, who died on August 30 at the age of 91. According to the Kremlin, there is no meeting planned between Orban and Russian President Vladimir Putin afterwards.
Orban paid his last respects to Gorbachev in Moscow’s House of the Unions on Saturday. He laid flowers at the base of the casket and offered his condolences to the bereaved family.
Aside from the Hungarian premier, US Ambassador John Sullivan, British Ambassador Deborah Bronnert, German Ambassador Geza Andreas von Geyr, French Ambassador Pierre Levy and Spanish Ambassador Marcos Gomez Martinez attended the memorial ceremony.
The last leader of the Soviet Union passed away late on Tuesday. Gorbachev served as general secretary of the USSR’s Central Committee of the Communist Party from 1985 to 1990, going on to become the first and last president of the USSR. He left office after the country dissolved at the end of 1991.
In his time as Soviet leader, Gorbachev launched sweeping reforms, known as perestroika, aimed at liberalizing the economy and public life. It was under his leadership that the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War came to an end – something for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990.
Gorbachev’s critics, however, blame him for the collapse of the Soviet Union and Russia’s subsequent loss of prestige and global influence.
He will be buried in Moscow’s Novodevichy Cemetery next to his wife Raisa, who died in 1999.
