Mikhail Gorbachev, the man who ended Cold War, failed to prevent collapse of Soviet Union, dies at 91

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, died in Moscow aged 91. Gorbachev, who ended the Cold War with the US but couldn't stop the collapse of the mighty Soviet Union, died after a long illness.

"Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev died this evening after a severe and prolonged illness," Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported, quoting the hospital where he died.

Gorbachev, who served as the President of the Soviet Union between 1985 and 1991, was the last surviving Cold War leader.

Ended Cold War: One of the biggest achievements of his career was to end the Cold War and bring the Soviet Union closer to the West.

He forged arms reduction deals with the United States and had partnerships with other Western powers. This helped bring the divided Europe closer for the first time since World War 2 and also led to the reunification of Germany.

Gorbachev won the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in ending the Cold War.

Implosion of the Soviet Union: He tried to reform the Soviet Union by bringing a series of changes. But his reforms and a new approach also resulted in the collapse of the Soviet state.

Russians blamed him for the 1991 implosion of the Soviet Union, whose territory got fractured into 15 separate nations, reported the AP. It led to the freeing of Eastern European nations from the Soviets and also ended the East-West nuclear confrontation.

When pro-democracy protests rocked Soviet bloc nations in communist Eastern Europe in 1989, Gorbachev refrained from using force. Previous Soviet leaders had sent tanks to crush uprisings in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, reported Reuters.

These protests increased over time as nations under the Soviet rule wanted freedom and two years later, it led to the disintegration of the Union.

Early life: Mikhail Gorbachev was born on March 2, 1931 in the Stavropol region of Russia. Both his parents both worked on the farmlands. Gorbachev became a member of the Communist Party while he was studying at Moscow State University in the early 1950s.

In 1961 he became secretary of the Young Communist League and his role as an agricultural administrator gave him the opportunity to introduce innovations and this gave him considerable influence in the Stavropol, reported BBC.

In 1980 he was appointed a full member of the Politburo. In 1985 he became the first general secretary to have been born after the Russian Revolution of 1917.

Years after power: As the USSR collapsed, Gorbachev was superseded by  Boris Yeltsin, who became post-Soviet Russia's first president. He made a disastrous attempt to return to politics and ran for president in 1996 but received just 0.5 per cent of the vote, reported AFP.

In 1997, he resorted to making a TV ad for Pizza Hut to earn money for his charitable foundation, reported AP.

Strained relations with Putin: While Gorbachev said Putin did much to restore stability and prestige to Russia, he protested growing limitations on media freedom, and in 2006 bought one of Russia’s last investigative newspapers, Novaya Gazeta, reported AP.

Putin has called the disintegration of the Soviet Union under Gorbachev "greatest geopolitical catastrophe" of the twentieth century.