Irish Examiner view: Western leaders could not have attended a state funeral for Gorbachev

Mikhail Gorbachev's passing is a marker of a different era but it could have presented a tricky diplomatic challenge in 2022

Then Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev and then taoiseach Charles Haughey at Shannon Airport in April 1989. File picture: PA

The passing of Mikhail Gorbachev at the age of 91 is another marker of a different era — an era, in this case, in which the leader of Russia could not only receive the freedom of the city of Dublin but also appear in a Pizza Hut television advert.

Gorbachev was both the last secretary of the Supreme Soviet and the first president of Russia, and the journey from one title to the next encompasses vast historical changes. Under his leadership, satellite states in eastern Europe achieved real independence, while Russia itself abandoned communism for market forces red in tooth and claw.