Gorbachev Was Buried In Moscow In A Funeral Snubbed By Putin

Gorbachev, who died on Tuesday aged 91, initiated sweeping reforms that helped end the Cold War. But it also hastened the breakup of the Soviet Union, which Putin has called the “biggest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century.” The farewell viewing of his body in a gallery near the Kremlin was overshadowed by the realization that the transparency Gorbachev championed has been stifled under Putin. “I want to thank him for my childhood of freedom, which we don’t have today,” lamented Ilya, a financial services worker in his early 30s who declined to give his last name. “I am a son of perestroika,” he said, using the Russian word for Gorbachev’s reform or reconstruction initiatives. “I wish we had more people like him in our history,” said another mourner, Yulia Prividennaya. “We need politicians like that to sort out the world when it’s on the brink of World War III.” After the screening, Gorbachev’s body was buried next to his wife Raisa at the Novodevichy Cemetery, home to many prominent Russians, including the post-Soviet country’s first president, Boris Yeltsin, whose power struggle with Gorbachev precipitated the collapse of the Soviet Union Union. The procession carrying the casket to the cemetery was led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dmitry Muratov, editor of Novaya Gazeta, Russia’s last major Kremlin-critical news outlet before it was suspended in March. Gorbachev used funds from his own Nobel Prize to help start the paper. The Kremlin’s refusal to officially call a state funeral reflects its unease with the legacy of Gorbachev, who is revered worldwide for bringing down the Iron Curtain but by many at home for the Soviet collapse and subsequent economic collapse that plunged millions into poverty. On Thursday, Putin privately laid flowers on Gorbachev’s coffin at a Moscow hospital where he died. The Kremlin said the president’s busy schedule would prevent him from attending the funeral. Asked what specific work would occupy Putin on Saturday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the president was to have a series of working meetings, an international phone call and must prepare for a business forum in Russia’s Far East that is to attend next week. Gorbachev’s body was put on public display in the Pillar Hall of the House of the Unions, a lavish 18th-century mansion near the Kremlin that has served as a venue for state funerals since the Soviet era. Mourners filed past Gorbachev’s open casket, flanked by honor guards, laying flowers as official music played. Gorbachev’s daughter, Irina, and his two granddaughters sat by the coffin. The grand, chandeliered, columned hall hosted balls for the nobility under the tsars and served as a venue for high-level meetings and conferences along with state funerals during the Soviet era. As they entered the building, mourners saw honor guards flanking a large photo of Gorbachev standing with a broad smile, a reminder of the cheerful vigor he brought to the Soviet leadership after a series of sad, ailing predecessors. The attendance was large enough that the viewing was extended for another two hours beyond the two hours listed. Despite choosing the prestigious site for the farewell ceremony, the Kremlin stopped short of calling it a state funeral, with Peskov saying the ceremony would have “elements” of one, such as honor guards, and government help in organizing it. He would not describe how it will differ from a full state funeral. Saturday’s ceremony had all the trappings of a state funeral in name, including the national flag draped over Gorbachev’s coffin. with goosebumping guards firing into the air and a small band playing the Russian anthem, which uses the same tune as the Soviet anthem. But officially declaring a state funeral for Gorbachev would oblige Putin to attend and require Moscow to invite foreign leaders, something it has apparently been reluctant to do amid heightened tensions with the West after Russia sent troops in Ukraine. Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council under Putin, who served as Russia’s president from 2008-2012, appeared at the farewell ceremony. He then posted on a messaging app channel referring to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and accusing the US and its allies of trying to engineer Russia’s breakup, a policy he described as a “chess game with death.” .
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a frequent critic of Western sanctions against Russia, was the only foreign leader to attend Saturday’s farewell. The ambassadors of the USA, Britain, Germany and other Western countries also attended. The relatively modest ceremony contrasted with a lavish 2007 state funeral given to Yeltsin, who anointed Putin as his preferred successor and set the stage for him to win the presidency by stepping down. Grigory Yavlinsky, the leader of the liberal Yabloko party who worked on economic reform plans under Gorbachev, hailed him for “giving people a chance to say what they thought – something Russia had never had before”. Putin has avoided direct personal criticism of Gorbachev, but has repeatedly accused him of failing to secure written commitments from the West that would rule out NATO’s eastward expansion. The issue has marred Russian-Western relations for decades and fueled tensions that exploded when the Russian leader sent troops into Ukraine on February 24. In a carefully worded letter of condolence released Wednesday that avoided explicit praise or criticism, Putin described Gorbachev as a man who left “a huge impact on the course of world history.” “He has led the country through difficult and dramatic changes amid large-scale foreign policy, economic and societal challenges,” Putin said. “He deeply realized that reforms were necessary and tried to offer his solutions to the acute problems.” The Kremlin’s ambivalence about Gorbachev was reflected in state television broadcasts, which described his global acclaim and high expectations arising from his reforms, but held him responsible for plunging the country into political turmoil and economic woes and failure to properly defend the country’s interests in talks with the West. ——— More AP stories on Mikhail Gorbachev here: