- Mikhail Gorbachev saw the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot as a dark omen for the US.
- The events "called into question the future fate of the United States," he told Russian media.
Before his death, Mikhail Gorbachev said the Capitol riot threw the future of the United States into uncertainty.
The day after the attack, the former leader of the USSR told Russian news agency Interfax the events "called into question the future fate of the United States as a state," multiple news outlets reported.
Gorbachev went on to say that "the storming of the Capitol was clearly planned in advance, and it's obvious by whom," although he did not specify whom he was referring to, according to The Moscow Times.
"It will take a little time, and we will figure it out, why it was really done," Gorbachev said, according to Just The News.
Gorbachev was the last leader of the Soviet Union before it dissolved in 1991. He died at the age of 91 on August 30, according to Russian news outlets.
As president, Gorbachev himself was a target of a failed coup d'etat during the final months of his leadership. And many commentators on the January 6 Capitol riot drew parallels to what's now known as the August Coup.
On August 18, 1991, hardliners in the Soviet Union Communist Party — including members of Gorbachev's administration — attempted to oust their country's leader by placing him under house arrest and demanding he resign. Gorbachev refused, but leaders of the coup disseminated an announcement anyway, claiming that the leader was ill and removed from his position. The Russian military and demonstrators soon swarmed the Russian White House and protestors turned against the hardliners.
Soldiers began to flee — while some decided to join the demonstrators — and the coup fell apart within three days.
Gorbachev returned to Moscow and regained control on August 22, 1991. He resigned as president of the Soviet Union later that year, on December 25.