Pavel Palazhchenko, who worked with the late Soviet president for 37 years and was by his side at many US-Soviet summits, spoke to Gorbachev a few weeks ago by phone and said he and others were shocked by how wounded he was. it was from the events in Ukraine. “It wasn’t just the (special military) operation that started on February 24, but the whole development of relations between Russia and Ukraine over the last few years was a really, really big blow to him. It really crushed him emotionally and psychologically,” Palazhchenko told Reuters in an interview. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSign up “It was very clear to us in our conversations with him that he was shocked and bewildered by what was happening (after Russian troops entered Ukraine in February) for all kinds of reasons. He believed not only in the closeness of the Russian and Ukrainian people, he believed that these two nations were mixed.” President Vladimir Putin sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on February 24 in a “special military operation” he said was necessary to ensure Russia’s security against an expanding NATO military alliance and to protect Russian speakers. Kyiv says it is not a threat and is now defending itself against an unprovoked imperial-style war of aggression. The West has imposed sweeping sanctions on Moscow to try to get Putin to pull his forces back, which he does not appear to be doing. In photographs of 1980s summits with US President Ronald Reagan, Palazhchenko’s bald, mustachioed figure can be seen time and again at Gorbachev’s side, leaning in to record and relay every word. Now 73, he is in a position to know the late politician’s state of mind in the period before he died, having seen him in recent months and been in contact with Gorbachev’s daughter, Irina. Gorbachev, who was 91 when he died Tuesday of an unspecified illness, had family ties to Ukraine, Palazhchenko said. He was speaking at the headquarters of the Gorbachev Foundation in Moscow, where he works, and where Gorbachev kept an office dominated by a giant portrait of his late wife Raisa, whose father was from Ukraine.
CONFLICT IN UKRAINE
While in power, Gorbachev tried to keep the 15 republics of the Soviet Union, including Ukraine, united, but failed after the reforms he instituted encouraged many of them to demand independence. Soviet forces used lethal force in some cases during the days of the USSR against civilians. Politicians in Lithuania and Latvia recalled these events with horror after Gorbachev’s death, saying they still blamed him for the bloodshed. read more Palazchenko said Gorbachev, who said he believed in solving problems solely through political means, either did not know about any of these bloody incidents in advance or “extremely reluctantly” authorized the use of force to prevent chaos. Gorbachev’s position on Ukraine was complex and contradictory in his mind, Palazhchenko said, because the late politician still believed in the idea of the Soviet Union. “Of course at the heart of it the kind of mental map for him and for most people of his political generation is still a kind of imaginary country that includes most of the former Soviet Union,” Palazhchenko said. But Gorbachev would not have gone to war to restore the restored country, which he presided over from 1985 to 1991, he suggested. “Of course I can’t imagine him saying ‘this is it and I’ll do anything to enforce it’. No.” While Gorbachev believed it was his duty to show respect and support to Putin, his former interpreter said he spoke publicly when he disagreed with him, such as over his treatment of the media. However, he had taken the decision not to “offer current commentary” on Ukraine beyond approving a statement in February calling for an early end to hostilities and addressing humanitarian concerns. Gorbachev’s relationship with Ukraine was sometimes difficult. Kyiv banned him in 2016 after he told Britain’s Sunday Times that he would have acted in the same way as Putin in 2014 by annexing Crimea. “I am always with the free will of the people and most people in Crimea wanted to be reunited with Russia,” Gorbachev said at the time, referring to the result of a referendum that Kyiv and the West called illegitimate. Some Ukrainians also blame him for the initial Soviet cover-up of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
THE FORM OF HISTORY
While admitting that some Russians and people throughout the former Soviet empire had extremely negative views of Gorbachev in the economic and geopolitical turmoil that followed the collapse of the USSR in 1991, Palazhchenko argued that Gorbachev’s legacy was still substantial. Not only had it helped end the Cold War and reduced the risk of nuclear war, he said, but it had voluntarily dismantled totalitarianism within the Soviet Union and given Russia a chance for freedom and democracy. “I think he remained optimistic about the future of Russia,” despite his own legacy being “disintegrated” and what he considered “unfair criticism,” Palazhchenko said. “He believed that the people of Russia are very talented people and once they are given a chance, maybe a second chance, that talent … will show.” Palazhchenko, who reminisced about the US-Soviet Cold War summits and chatted in a limousine with Gorbachev after the White House talks, said he and his colleagues now faced the task of reading his papers and books Gorbachev at the late politician’s state dacha outside Moscow. there was much material that had not yet been systematically recorded in his archive. Visibly angered by criticism of Gorbachev after his death from some people on social media, whom he called “haters”, Palazhchenko said his former employer believed history would judge him fairly. “He liked to say that history is a fickle lady. I think he believed and expected that the final verdict would be favorable to him.” Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSign up Report by Andrew Osborn. Edited by Mark Trevelyan Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
