Russian President Vladimir Putin is to miss the funeral of the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, denying the man who failed to prevent the collapse of the Soviet empire the full state honors granted to Boris Yeltsin.
Gorbachev, idolized in the West for allowing eastern Europe to escape Soviet communist control but unloved at home for the chaos that his perestroika reforms unleashed, will be buried on Saturday after a public ceremony in Moscow's Hall of Columns.
The grand hall, within sight of the Kremlin, hosted the funerals of Soviet leaders Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin and Leonid Brezhnev. Gorbachev will be given a military guard of honor — but his funeral will not be a state one.