Mikhail Gorbachev, who as the last leader of the Soviet Union waged a losing battle to salvage a crumbling empire but produced extraordinary reforms that led to the end of the Cold War, has died at 91, according to Russian media.
News organisations quoted a statement from the Central Clinical Hospital as saying he died after a long illness. No other details were given. Though in power less than seven years, Mr Gorbachev unleashed a breathtaking series of changes, but they quickly overtook him and resulted in the collapse of the authoritarian Soviet state, the freeing of eastern European nations from Russian domination and the end of decades of East-West nuclear confrontation.
His power sapped by an attempted coup against him in August 1991, he spent his last months in office watching republic after republic declare independence until he resigned on Christmas Day 1991. The Soviet Union wrote itself into oblivion a day later.
