As the Soviet Union was breaking up 25 years ago, then-Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev expected the US and its allies to provide vital aid. He thinks their failure to offer significant help wasted a chance to build a safer world and resulted from short-sighted gloating at a Cold War rival’s demise.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press, 85-year-old Gorbachev voiced hope that Russia and the US would do better during US president-elect Donald Trump’s term in office.
“The relations between us are so important and concern everyone else, so we must take the interests of others into account,” said the leader credited with helping to end the Cold War.
Photo: AP
Gorbachev said he was surprised by Trump’s victory, but declined to offer an assessment of the president-elect. He said it remains to be seen what policies the new US administration would pursue.
“He has little political experience, but maybe it’s good,” Gorbachev said.
Gorbachev walked slowly with a cane, but his smile was as captivating as always, his wits as sharp as usual and his reactions quick during the rare, hour-long interview in his foundation’s office in Moscow.
Gorbachev, who helped end the Cold War by launching liberal reforms, cutting nuclear stockpiles and allowing Soviet nations in Europe to break free from Moscow’s diktat, spoke bitterly about the West’s failure to embrace the new era of cooperation he says his policy of perestroika offered.
“They were rubbing their hands, saying: ‘How nice. We had been trying to do something about the Soviet Union for decades and it ate itself up,’” Gorbachev said.
He criticized what he described as Western “triumphalism,” saying it remains a key factor in tensions between Russia and the West.
Russia-West ties are at their worst since the Cold War era following Moscow’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in March 2014 and its support for a pro-Russian separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine.
The US and the EU responded with several rounds of economic sanctions, which along with low crude oil prices have driven Russia’s economy into recession.
Gorbachev said Russian and US leaders must sit down for talks and “stay at the table until they reach agreement.”
“The world needs Russia and the United States to cooperate,” Gorbachev said. “Together, they could lead the world ... to a new path.”
Gorbachev also praised outgoing US President Barack Obama, but he deplored what he described as a misguided policy toward Russia pursued by the US and its allies, both during his presidency and now.
“They have been badgering Russia with accusations and blaming it for everything, and now there is a backlash to that in Russia. Russia wants to have friendly ties with America, but it’s difficult to do that when Russia sees that it’s being cheated,” he said.
Asked his opinion about Putin’s leadership, Gorbachev said he sees him as a “worthy president,” even though he has assailed the Kremlin for a crackdown on freedom of speech and rigid political controls.
“I almost fully supported him first and then I began to voice criticism,” Gorbachev said of Putin. “I can’t renounce my views.”
Gorbachev has received global accolades for perestroika, which eased government economic controls, and his role in ending the Cold War. At home, many held him responsible — and still do — for economic hardships, political turmoil and the loss of superpower status resulting from the Soviet Union’s collapse.
His voice trembled with emotion as he recalled the waning days of the Soviet Union, when his archrival, former Russian president Boris Yeltsin, and leaders of other Soviet republics were plotting his ouster, while pretending to support a treaty that would give the republics broader powers.
“Yeltsin took part in that and supported it, but he was conspiring behind my back how to get rid of Gorbachev,” he said, saying that the Russian leader was driven by a hunger for power.
“Russia was spearheading the Soviet breakup,” he said.
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