President Joe Biden praised former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who died Tuesday at the age of 91, for his leadership during the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
“Mikhail Gorbachev was a man of remarkable vision,” Biden said in a statement released by the White House.
MIKHAIL GORBACHEV, LAST LEADER OF THE SOVIET UNION AND NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WINNER, DIES
The president applauded Gorbachev’s bravery in leading the USSR’s transition away from communism, noting that when he came to power, “few high-level Soviet officials had the courage to admit that things needed to change.”
“As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I saw him do that and more. As leader of the USSR, he worked with President Reagan to reduce our two countries’ nuclear arsenals, to the relief of people worldwide praying for an end to the nuclear arms race. After decades of brutal political repression, he embraced democratic reforms,” Biden said, highlighting the glasnost and perestroika reforms as Gorbachev’s “path forward for the people of the Soviet Union after so many years of isolation and deprivation.”
“These were the acts of a rare leader — one with the imagination to see that a different future was possible and the courage to risk his entire career to achieve it. The result was a safer world and greater freedom for millions of people,” Biden said.
The president also remarked in his statement that when Gorbachev visited the White House in 2009, he and the former Soviet leader discussed the work being done to reduce the U.S. and Russian nuclear stockpiles. Biden was vice president at the time of the meeting.
Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, died at Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow on Tuesday. The Nobel Peace Prize winner reportedly suffered from long-term kidney problems.
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The Soviet reformer will reportedly be buried at Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow beside his wife. The cemetery is also the final resting place of fellow Russian greats such as author Nikolai Gogol, playwright Anton Chekhov, and Russian leaders Boris Yeltsin and Nikita Khrushchev.
“We send our deepest condolences to his family and friends, and to people everywhere who benefited from his belief in a better world,” Biden’s statement read.
