Former Soviet leader Gorbachev says he knows who plotted the siege on U.S. Capitol

Gorbachev briefly was held captive during an attempted coup against him in the former Soviet Union.

By Susan Katz Keating*

The symbolic reset button presented to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
(Alexander Nemenov/Getty Images

Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev said that he knows who planned the attack on the U.S. Capitol, and that the incident bodes ill for America’s future.

“The storming of the Capitol was clearly designed in advance, and it is clear by whom,” Gorbachev last week told an interviewer for Russian media. And, while he didn’t identify the plotters, the renowned statesman said that he senses machinations at work.

“It will take a little time, and we will figure it out, why it was really done,” Gorbachev said.

A pivotal international figure during the latter years of the Cold War, Gorbachev in 1991 was briefly held captive during a failed attempt to overthrow him in the Soviet Union. The Soviet communist coup conspirators favored a hard line over Gorbachev’s liberalized approach to running the country. Although Gorbachev faced down the plotters, the incident is widely viewed as having ushered in the demise of the Soviet Union.

The Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol was quickly put down, and was not accompanied by the usual trappings of a coup d’etat, such as tanks in the streets. Nevertheless, Gorbachev indicated that the episode would reverberate through the United States. The incident “called into question the future fate of the United States as a state,” he said.

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