Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has led tributes to the late former leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, saying he changed the world for the better and that one of the true giants on the 2oth Century was gone.
In an official media statement, Albanese said that Gorbachev was instrumental in transitioning the Soviet Union away from a closed communist society.
“Mikhail Gorbachev was a man of warmth, hope, resolve and enormous courage and in a world that was profoundly divided, he was driven be an instinct for co-operation and unity,” he said.
“As the leader of the Soviet Union, he brought openness to a closed society with his policy of Glasnost. With Perestroika, he began to restructure a political and economic system deeply resistant to any such attempts. He freed the nations of Eastern Europe from the prison of Soviet rule. With President Reagan he achieved breakthroughs in arms control, including for some nuclear weapons.”…