Former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who presided over the end of the Cold War and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, has died aged 91. Russian hospital officials said in a statement Mr Gorbachev died after a long illness. MORE: 9News
News organisations quoted a statement from the Central Clinical Hospital as saying he died after a long illness. No other details were given.
"The country was loaded to the brim with weapons. And it would have immediately pushed the country into a civil war," he said. By the end of his rule he was powerless to halt the whirlwind he had sown. Yet Gorbachev may have had a greater impact on the second half of the 20th century than any other political figure.
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