Mikhail Gorbachev: Former Soviet leader dies age 91 'after long illness'

Jonathan Eyal, of the think-tank the Royal United Services Institute, said: "He didn't believe that the Soviet Union was actually an empire in itself of nations that did not want to be shackled. "Like all Soviet leaders, and dare I say like Russian leaders today, he saw the Soviet Union as synonymous with Russia, and he simply could not understand why nations wanted to be independent."