Putin Pays Tribute to Gorbachev but Won’t Attend His Funeral

Russian President Vladimir Putin pays his last respect near the coffin of former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev at the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow on Sept. 1, 2022, in an image taken from video. Russian pool via AP

MOSCOW—Russian President Vladimir Putin privately laid flowers at former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s coffin on Thursday. He won’t attend the weekend’s public funeral.

Just before departing for a working trip to Russia’s western-most Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad, Putin visited a Moscow hospital where Gorbachev’s body was being kept before Saturday’s funeral.