Media report: Must have dialysis
Gorbachev is said to be suffering from kidney problems
6/20/2022, 3:24 p.m
A large Russian Telegram channel wants information about the health of former Soviet President Gorbachev: The 91-year-old has to have his blood washed in the hospital from time to time. There is no official confirmation.
According to a media report, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has serious kidney problems. “The ex-President of the USSR has to go to the blood wash,” said the Russian Telegram channel “Mash”. Accordingly, the 91-year-old has recurring health problems that come to a head from time to time.
According to “Mash”, Gorbachev has been constantly examined by doctors for a year. He recently had to go to the hospital for dialysis. “There his blood is cleaned,” it says. Gorbachev’s kidney disease has not yet been officially confirmed. “Mash” is a successful Russian online news medium that displays its content via social networks such as Facebook, Instagram or VKontakte, but also via messenger services such as Telegram. “Mash” was the most cited Telegram channel by Russian media in 2020. This was revealed by an investigation of Media Analysts Medialogy.
Gorbachev became General Secretary of the CPSU in 1985 and was thus a quasi-Soviet head of state. In 1990 he was formally elected the first and only President of the Soviet Union to date. During his tenure, he tried to reform the country with “perestroika” (transformation) and “glasnost” (openness), but in the end the Soviet Union disintegrated.
At the beginning of the year, several Lithuanians filed suit against Gorbachev for failing to stop Soviet troops from crushing the Lithuanian independence movement more than 30 years ago. On January 13, 1991, clashes in Vilnius between demonstrators and the Soviet military killed 14 civilians and injured 700 people. The lawsuit was filed by relatives of those killed.