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Mikhail Gorbachev did not comment on the war in Ukraine, which turned out to be straddling the last six months of his life: he died this week at the age of 91. But the purpose of the violent expansionism that current Russian leader Vladimir Putin turns into following is a striking example of the difference between the two leaders.
Gorbachev, in the end opting for connection with the rest of the world and nonviolence, allowed the Soviet Union to secede. Putin has spent his two decades and more in force tearing down so many of his predecessor’s policies that it is now conceivable that he needs to rebuild the Soviet Union, or something like that.
Apparently, the dates between the two men were respectful, so reserved. Putin did not publicly criticize Gorbachev during his lifetime, though he called the collapse of the Soviet Union “the greatest geopolitical disaster of the century. “Gorbachev’s circle of relatives is an exercise in circumscribed praise:
Mikhail Gorbachev was a politician and statesman who had a great impact on the course of world history. It led our country through an era of complex and dramatic changes, large-scale foreign policy, economic and social challenges. He deeply understood that reforms were needed, he strove to be offering his own answers to pressing problems,” he said, while praising Gorbachev’s humanitarian and charitable work. In other words: he made changes, but not necessarily good ones; the scenario was difficult; he did the best he could, but he didn’t necessarily succeed.
The Kremlin has not yet clarified whether Gorbachev will gain advantages from a state funeral, such as those presented to his soon-to-be successor, Boris Yeltsin, who died in 2007.
Meanwhile, Gorbachev’s attitude toward Putin has been replaced for many years. He criticized Putin’s resolve to run for a third term in effect. “Politics is increasingly becoming an imitation of democracy,” Gorbachev said at the time. “All the strength is in the hands of the government and the president. “But when Putin sought a fourth term in 2018, Gorbachev seemed more favorable. He wrote Russian for the Syrian regime and insisted that Crimea was part of Russia, but he also insisted, before that happened. – that the concept of a Russian-Ukrainian war was absurd.
Gorbachev’s tenure was in fact an era of “dramatic” replacement. While he has overseen violent acts of oppression, in the Baltic states, for example, he has selected nonviolence as his country’s end path. When his policy of glasnost, or “openness,” spread throughout the former Russian Empire and encouraged his other relatives to radically change their lives, he did not forcibly repress. In 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed, Gorbachev resigned.
Is Putin going to reconstitute a bloc similar to the one he saw, a young KGB agent, fall apart?
The invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, preceded by the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and incursions into Ukrainian territory since then, have been described as moves of a kind that needs a larger country. Putin, for his part, has said that Russia’s attacks on Ukraine are aimed at protecting its own security and fighting what he calls “Nazification. “
Another striking difference: in 2019, Gorbachev insisted in an interview with the BBC that all nuclear weapons must be destroyed. Putin’s geopolitical strength is greatly reinforced by the fact that Russia has retained a large nuclear capability.
If Gorbachev is “the last vital link to the Soviet Union,” his death could simply help erase Russian reminiscence from that era, potentially giving Putin even greater freedom in his attempts to write a new chapter.