MOSCOW, Sep 1(ABC): Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday paid tribute to Mikhail Gorbachev but will not attend the late former Soviet leader’s funeral, a decision reflecting the Kremlin’s ambivalence about Gorbachev’s legacy.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that prior to departing for a working trip to Russia’s westernmost Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad, Putin visited a Moscow hospital where Mikhail Gorbachev’s body is kept before Saturday’s funeral to lay flowers at his coffin.
“Regrettably, the president’s working schedule wouldn’t allow him to do that on Saturday, so he decided to do that today,” Peskov said in a conference call with reporters.
Gorbachev, who died Tuesday, will be buried at Moscow’s Novodevichy cemetery next to his wife Raisa after a farewell ceremony will be held at the Pillar Hall of the House of the Unions, a historic mansion near the Kremlin that has served as the venue for state funerals since Soviet times.
Asked if Gorbachev will be given a state funeral, Peskov said the funeral will have “elements” of state funeral, such as honorary guards, and the government will help organize them. He wouldn’t elaborate how the ceremony will differ from a full-fledged state funeral.
Putin’s decision to pay a private visit to the hospital while staying away from Saturday’s public farewell ceremony combined with uncertainty surrounding the funeral’s status reflect the Kremlin’s divided thinking on the legacy of Gorbachev. The late leader has been lauded in the West by putting an end to the Cold War but reviled by many at home for actions that led to the 1991 Soviet collapse and plunged millions into poverty.