Obstacles for foreign guests at Gorbachev's funeral

Long before his death, former Soviet President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Mikhail Gorbachev arranged his funeral. He is buried in Moscow's famous celebrity cemetery at the Novodevichy Convent, where he secured a grave next to his wife Raisa Gorbacheva, who died in Münster in 1999 after a serious illness. He was there often. However, it is unclear which international guests will come to the funeral in Moscow - in view of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine and the EU and US sanctions against the country.

Not only have many high-ranking politicians in the EU been banned from entering the country by the Russian side as a reaction to the Western sanctions. The airspace in Russia is also blocked for "unfriendly EU countries".

Many Western politicians are avoiding contact with Russia because of the war of aggression against Ukraine ordered by Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin six months ago. In view of the historical and international significance of the politician, guests from abroad should also want to say goodbye to the politician, who was also considered one of the fathers of German unity.

Gorbachev died in Moscow on Tuesday evening at the age of 91 after a long illness. He was the last General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and had introduced the policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (transformation). In 1991 he resigned as Soviet President.

The prominent liberal Russian opposition politician Grigory Yavlinsky has praised Gorbachev as a changer in the world. “Gorbachev gave us freedom. He gave freedom to millions of people – in Russia and its surroundings and in half of Europe,” wrote the founder of the opposition party Yabloko on Wednesday night in his blog on the Telegram news channel. Yavlinsky and the Yabloko party are the last remnants of the opposition in Russia.