- Mikhail Gorbachev was shocked and bewildered by the war in Ukraine
- Pavel Palazhchenko last served with the soviet president for 37 years.
- Gorbachev, who died on Tuesday at the age of 91 from an undisclosed illness,
Last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was shocked and bewildered by the war in Ukraine in a couple of months he died he was psychologically tied to the worsened situation in Moscow said an interpreter on Thursday.
Pavel Palazhchenko who last served with soviet president for 37 years and was present at multiple US-Soviet summits, spoke with Gorbachev via phone a few weeks ago, and stated he and others were astonished by how traumatized he was by events in Ukraine
“It’s not just the (special military) operation that started on Feb. 24, but the entire evolution of relations between Russia and Ukraine over the past years that was really, really a big blow to him. It really crushed him emotionally and psychologically,” Palazhchenko told in an interview.
“It was very obvious to us in our conversations with him that he was shocked and bewildered by what was happening (after Russian troops entered Ukraine in February) for all kinds of reasons. He believed not just in the closeness of the Russian and Ukrainian people, he believed that those two nations were intermingled.”
On February 24, President Vladimir Putin dispatched tens of thousands of troops to Ukraine in what he described as a “special military operation” to secure Russia’s security against a growing NATO military alliance and to protect Russian-speakers.
Kyiv claims it presented no threat and is now defending itself against an unjustified imperial-style attack. The West has slapped harsh penalties on Moscow in an attempt to persuade Putin to withdraw his forces, but he shows no signs of doing so.
The bald, moustachioed figure of Palazhchenko can be seen time and again by Gorbachev’s side, bending in to capture and repeat every word, in images of 1980s summits with US President Ronald Reagan.
Now 73, he is ideally placed to know the late politician’s mental state in the months leading up to his death, having seen him recently and communicating with Gorbachev’s daughter Irina.
Gorbachev, who died on Tuesday at the age of 91 from an undisclosed illness, had familial ties to Ukraine, according to Palazhchenko. He was speaking at the Gorbachev Foundation’s Moscow headquarters, where Gorbachev had an office dominated by a big portrait of his late wife Raisa, whose father was from Ukraine.
[embedpost slug=”indian-forces-participate-in-russian-military-exercise-despite-u-s-concerns/”]
