Mikhail Gorbachev funeral: Thousands line up to say farewell as Putin absent

The war in Ukraine has already seen the last vestiges of Gorbachev's reforms of an open, democratic Russia consigned to history, ITV News Correspondent John Ray reports

Thousands of mourners have lined up to pay their respects to former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who helped to end the Cold War peacefully and whose drastic reforms precipitated the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of communism.

The former president died on Tuesday of a long illness.

Russian President Vladimir Putin did not attend the funeral, in a move that reflects the Kremlin's uneasiness about Gorbachev's legacy.

The transformational leader has been celebrated worldwide for bringing down the Iron Curtain but condemned by many at home in Russia for the Soviet collapse and the ensuing economic meltdown that plunged millions into poverty.

On Thursday, Mr Putin privately laid flowers at Gorbachev’s coffin at the Moscow hospital where he died.

But the Kremlin said the president’s busy schedule would prevent him from attending the funeral. Asked what specific business will keep Putin busy on Saturday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the president will have a series of working meetings and an international phone call.

Gorbachev will be buried at Moscow’s Novodevichy cemetery next to his wife, Raisa, following a farewell ceremony at the Pillar Hall of the House of the Unions, an opulent 18th century mansion near the Kremlin that has served as the venue for state funerals since Soviet times.

Warning: photographs below show Mikhail Gorbachev's dead body laying in an open casket

At the ceremony, mourners passed by Gorbachev's open casket flanked by honorary guards, laying flowers as solemn music played. Gorbachev's daughter, Irina, and his two granddaughters sat beside the coffin.

Despite the choice of the prestigious site for the farewell ceremony, the Kremlin stopped short of calling it a state funeral, with Mr Peskov saying the ceremony would have “elements” of one, such as honorary guards, and the government’s assistance in organising it.

He wouldn’t describe how it would differ from a full-fledged state funeral. Declaring a state funeral for Gorbachev would have obliged Mr Putin to attend and would have required Moscow to invite foreign leaders, something that it was apparently reluctant to do as tensions soar with the west due to its war in Ukraine.

Some foreign leaders were still expected to attend the ceremony, including Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who often has been critical of the Western sanctions against Russia.

James Mates reports on the legacy of the man who reframed the East's relationship with the West

The modest ceremony contrasted with the lavish 2007 state funeral given to Boris Yeltsin, Russia's first post-Soviet leader who anointed Mr Putin as his preferred successor and set the stage for him to win the presidency by stepping down. Mr Putin, who once lamented the collapse of the Soviet Union as the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,” has avoided explicit personal criticism of Gorbachev but has repeatedly blamed him for failing to secure written commitments from the West that would rule out Nato’s expansion eastward.

The issue has marred Russia-West relations for decades and agitated tensions that exploded when the Russian leader sent troops into Ukraine on February 24. In a carefully phrased letter of condolence released on Wednesday avoiding explicit praise or criticism, Mr Putin described Gorbachev as a man who left “an enormous impact on the course of world history.”

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