Mikhail Gorbachev - the last leader of the USSR and the man despised by Vladimir Putin and Russian nationalists for ending the Cold War and preventing the collapse of the Soviet Union - has died at the age of 91, Russian news agencies cited hospital officials as saying. Gorbachev forged arms reduction deals with the US and partnerships with Western powers to remove the Iron Curtain that had divided Europe since the Second World War and bring about the reunification of Germany.When pro-democracy protests swept across the Soviet bloc nations of communist Eastern Europe in 1989, he largely refrained from using force - unlike previous Kremlin leaders who had sent tanks to crush uprisings in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.
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