Roman Babayan, journalist, editor-in-chief of the Talk Moscow radio station, flew from Iraq to Lebanon in 2003 with Gorbachev:
Gorby asks, “What are people saying?” I say: “But people say, Mikhail Sergeevich, that in fact you are to take the blame. They say that if you hadn’t destroyed the Soviet Union, if you hadn’t betrayed all our friends and allies, none of this would be happening today. And I absolutely agree with them. You had absolute power in your hands. You were the president of a huge, powerful superpower. As a result, you did not retain this power, the state slipped through your fingers. You have shown weakness on all fronts. Your every decision turned into either human suffering, or broken destinies, or ethnic conflicts. That’s why I agree with these people.”
