The Gorbachev Foundation had earlier said that Mikhail Gorbachev would be buried at Moscow’s Novodevichy Cemetery, next to his wife Raisa. She has passed away in 1999
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, right, talks with former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. AP
New Delhi: Former president of erstwhile USSR Mikhail Gorbachev will not get a state funeral, said Russian state media on Wednesday. The former president, who ended the Cold War without any bloodshed and introduced Glasnost and Perestroika, the two policies considered to be at the heart of USSR’s disintegration, died on Tuesday at 91.
The Interfax agency quoted sourced as having said: “There are no plans to organise a state funeral for Gorbachev”.
Meanwhile, the Gorbachev Foundation had earlier said that the former world leader would be buried at Moscow’s Novodevichy Cemetery, next to his wife Raisa. She has passed away in 1999.
The last conundrum
The Ukraine War has strained relations between the West and Russia, since the former has slapped a host of sanctions against the latter.
While Gorbachev in his heyday was one of the world’s most influential leaders, his last rites have become posed uneasy questions, both with the West as well as Putin.
While the West considers him worthy to be given the last send off, pro-Putin leaders in the Kremlin have no love lost for Gorbachev since they consider him responsible for the disintegration of erstwhile Soviet Russia.
The West has always come forward to attend funerals of former heads of State in Russia. The funeral of Boris Yeltsin, first president of Russia who died in in 2007, was attended by former US presidents George Bush senior and Bill Clinton, along with former British PM Sir John Major.
Even Konstantin Chernenko’s funeral, who died in 1985, was attended by a posse of Western leaders, including British PM Margaret Thatcher and then West German chancellor Helmut Kohl.
According to a report by Daily Mail, UK, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday announced that the Kremlin was still deciding on the scale of the funeral for Gorbachev.
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