Kings Felipe and Letizia offer their condolences to Mikhail Gorbachev’s daughter: “It is a very sad loss”

The last president of the USSR and father of Perestroika died this Tuesday in Moscow at the age of 91. The Kings Felipe y Joy They have sent a heartfelt telegram to their daughter, Irina Gorbachevato convey his condolences: “Our deepest condolences for this sad loss of someone who has undoubtedly been a great personality in his country, in Europe and in the world”.

Their Majesties recalled in the telegram that “his work on the international scene was recognized with the Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation in 1989, with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 and with the Carlos V award from the European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste in 2002”, reads the document, provided by the Royal House.

Mikhail Gorbachev He passed away on Tuesday at the age of 91 at the Moscow Central Clinical Hospital. He had been hospitalized for months due to a host of ailments and isolated for years for fear of catching the coronavirus. The former president will be buried in the Novodevichy cemetery in the Russian capital, where the remains of prominent figures in the history of this country lie and the tomb of his wife, Raisawho died in 1999. There will be no state funeral.

Gorbachev led the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991, first as head of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Supreme Soviet and later as president. His greatest political achievement was Perestroika, the reformist policy that opened the doors to modern Russia. He resigned after the dissolution agreement signed with Belarus and Ukraine in 1991. A year earlier he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. “I am completely convinced that it was necessary and that we moved in the right direction. The people gained freedom and a totalitarian system was ended,” he said in an interview for the TASS agency.

A widower since 1999 (his wife Raisa died of leukemia), he orphaned his only daughter, Irina, heir to her father’s legacy and vice president of the Gorbachev Foundation, a non-profit organization that finances various companies.