Russian and Soviet statesman Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev passed away on Tuesday at the age of 91, according to hospital officials in Moscow.

He served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991, making him the eighth and final leader of the Soviet Union.

Mikhail Gorbachev, who avoided violence to end the Cold War but was unable to save the fall of the Soviet Union,

The last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, worked to bring about the reunification of Germany by negotiating armaments reduction agreements with the United States and forming alliances with Western nations.

The Soviet Union was weakened by its extensive internal changes to the point where it collapsed, which President Vladimir Putin has dubbed the “biggest geopolitical calamity” of the 20th century.

According to a statement from Russia’s Central Clinical Hospital, Mikhail Gorbachev passed away today after a serious and protracted illness. Putin sent “his sincere condolences,” according to Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for the Kremlin, to the news agency Interfax.

Did Mikhail Gorbachev have a son?

He had a daughter but had no son at the time of his death.