Putin expresses sympathies over Gorbachev's death

Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his "deepest condolences" over the death of former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on Tuesday night, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Interfax news agency.

The statement came within an hour of the announcement that Gorbachev, 91, had died.

In the weeks before his death, Gorbachev, the last leader of the now-defunct Soviet Union, reportedly revealed to a close friend, Russian journalist Alexei Venediktov, that he believed Putin had "destroyed" his "life's work."

Gorbachev had overseen a series of reforms in the Soviet Union that helped lead to the communist empire's collapse. While one of Putin's most prominent Russian critics, however, he supported Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.