Joe Biden mourns death of Mikhail Gorbachev, man with ‘extraordinary vision’

President of the United States Joe Bidensaid the last leader of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Mikhail Gorbachev, who died at the age of 91, was a man of “extraordinary vision”.

In a statement, Biden said Gorbachev was a rare leader with the imagination to see that a different future was possible and the courage to risk his entire career to achieve it.

“The result is a safer world and more freedom for millions of people,” the president said.

Joe Biden he recalled a conversation he had with the former Soviet president during his 2009 visit to the White House when he was vice president, during which they discussed US and Russian efforts to reduce their nuclear arsenals.

Gorbachev’s death

Gorbachev died yesterday, Tuesday, in Moscow at the age of 91, just as his country renewed its antagonism with the West.

Neither the Gorbachev Foundation nor his relatives publicly reported on the state of his health, but it was no secret to anyone that “Gorby”, as he was called in the West, was in very poor condition.

Sources at the Moscow Central Clinical Hospital, where he died, denied that the death had anything to do with coronavirusbut with his advanced age and the various attachments he carried around.

In his last public appearances two years ago, the military parade on the occasion of Victory Day or the premiere at the Theater of Nations of a play that rehabilitated his figure, he was always seen in a wheelchair.

The former president will be buried in the coming days at the Novodevichy Cemetery of Eminent Persons in the Russian capital, along with his inseparable Raisa, who died of leukemia in 1999. (EFE)