Cape Town – Russian President Vladimir Putin laid flowers at the coffin of the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, but will miss his funeral on Saturday.
Gorbachev died on Tuesday at the age of 91, and is to be laid to rest at the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow following a public farewell.
According to Sputnik News agency, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that there will be “elements of a state funeral in the sense that, of course, there will be a guard of honour”.
“A farewell will be organised, in this case the state will assist in organising this funeral,” said Peskov.
“The president went to the Kaliningrad region today… But before leaving, the president stopped at the Central Clinical Hospital, said goodbye to Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, and laid flowers at the coffin,” he said.
Meanwhile, Boris Yeltsin, the only other former leader to have died during Putin’s reign as president, was given a national televised farewell ceremony.
According to the Guardian publication, Putin had strained his relationship with Gorbachev, who is idolised in the West for initiating policies that led to the fall of the Soviet Union.
Furthermore, Berlin ordered official flags to be lowered during the weekend funeral, as a tribute to the former leader.
“We want to appropriately honour the accomplishments of our honorary citizen Mikhail Gorbachev in bringing about the political transformation of East Germany,” Berlin’s interior minister, Iris Spranger, said in a statement.
IOL