Russian news agencies quoted hospital officials saying that Mikhail Gorbachev, who ended the Cold War without bloodshed but failed to prevent the collapse of the Soviet Union, died on Tuesday at the age of 91.

Interfax news agency quoted the Russian Central Medical Hospital saying in a statement, "Mikhail Gorbachev died last night after a serious and long illness."

TASS news agency quoted the foundation established by the former Soviet leader immediately after leaving office, saying that Gorbachev will be buried in Moscow's Novodevichy Cemetery next to his wife Raisa, who died in 1999.

When pro-democracy protests swept through the communist Soviet bloc countries in Eastern Europe in 1989, Mikhail refrained from using force - unlike previous Kremlin leaders who sent tanks to crush uprisings in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. But the protests fueled aspirations for autonomy in the 15 republics of the Soviet Union, which later disintegrated.

Vladimir Shevchenko also said: "The era of Gorbachev is the era of Perestroika, the era of hope, the era of our entry into a missile-free world... but there was one miscalculation: we did not know our country well."

Notably, when Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party in 1985 at only 54 years old, he set out to revitalize the system by introducing limited political and economic freedoms, but his reforms spiraled out of control, as his policy of "Glasnost" - freedom of expression - allowed unexpected criticism of the party and state but also encouraged nationalists who began pushing for independence in the Baltic republics of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and elsewhere. Many Russians never forgave Gorbachev for the disruption his reforms caused, considering the subsequent decline in their living standards too high a price to pay for democracy.

After visiting Gorbachev in the hospital on June 30, liberal economist Ruslan Greenberg told news outlets: "He gave us all the freedom - but we don't know what to do with it."