Former German chancellor Angela Merkel has paid tribute to Russian Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, describing him as a "unique global politician."
"May the memory of his historic achievement make it possible to pause, especially in these terrible weeks and months of Russia's war against Ukraine," Merkel said in a statement posted on her website.
"Gorbachev wrote world history - he exemplified how a single statesman can change the world for the better," she said.
Without Gorbachev's courage for reform of the Soviet Union, "the peaceful revolution in the GDR [German Democratic Republic, or East Germany] would also not have been possible."
"I can still feel the fear I felt together with many people in the GDR in 1989, whether tanks would roll ... but this time, no tanks rolled, no shots were fired," she said.
