Gorbachev Accuses US of Stoking ‘New Cold War’
Photo Credit: VASILY MAXIMOV / AFP
The former Soviet leader spoke out as Ukrainian forces and separatist rebels agreed to a partial ceasefire in the civil war in the east of the country, which has killed at least 4,300 people since a Moscow-backed uprising broke out in April.
Mr Gorbachev said there was still time to defuse the standoff between Moscow and the West, as he and his western counterparts had done during the Perestroika period.
“Now there are once again signs of a Cold War,” he said in an interview with Tass, the state-owned news agency. “This process can and must be stopped. After all, we did it in the 1980s. We opted for de-escalation, for the reunification (of Germany). And back then it was a lot tougher than now. So we could do it again.”
Mr Gorbachev, 83, who has run a civil society foundation since he retired from politics, said he thought the United States was largely to blame for the confrontation today. “I don’t want to praise our government too much,” he said. “It has also made quite a few errors, but today the danger comes from the American position. They are tortured by triumphalism.”
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