The Kremlin has hailed the former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev as a statesman who will go down in history but said his ‘romanticism’ about prospects for a reconciliation with the west had been misplaced.
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Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson, said the hopes of Gorbachev, who died on 30 August aged 91, for cordial relations between the Soviet Union and the west ‘did not work out’, adding that the ‘bloodthirstiness of our opponents showed itself’.

Gorbachev’s reforms heralded the end of the cold war but also hastened the collapse of the Soviet Union after less than seven years in power.

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