Mikhail Gorbachev, the man who changed the world 1:39
(CNN)
Vladimir Putin will not attend Mikhail Gorbachev's funeral, the Kremlin said Thursday, in a snub to the former Soviet leader with whom the Russian president had a strained relationship.
Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said "Putin's work schedule will not allow him to participate in Gorbachev's farewell ceremony on September 3," adding that the Russian president visited the Central Clinical Hospital today to pay his respects to Gorbachev and lay flowers by the coffin.
A farewell ceremony for Gorbachev, which will be open to the public, will be held on Saturday, followed by a funeral later that day at Moscow's Novodevichy Cemetery.
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It is unclear if Gorbachev, who is credited with helping end the Cold War, will be honored with a state funeral.
In stark contrast to the Kremlin's actions following the death of former President Boris Yeltsin in 2007, the Russian government did not announce any plans for a state funeral when it issued a statement on Gorbachev's death on Wednesday.
"There will be elements of a state funeral," Peskov said Thursday.
"There will be a guard of honor and a farewell ceremony will be arranged. The state will help organize it," he added, without giving an explanation or details on how this would differ from ordinary state funerals.
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Gorbachev will be buried next to his wife Raisa, who died in 1999, Russian state media RIA Novosti said earlier this week, citing the Gorbachev foundation.
The historic cemetery is the final resting place of many notable Russians, including writers Mikhail Bulgakov, Anton Chekhov, and Nikolai Gogol, composers Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich, and former leaders Yeltsin and Nikita Khrushchev.
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Gorbachev grew more critical of Putin and his increasingly restrictive regime in recent years, as he traveled the world promoting free speech and democracy as part of his founding.
Meanwhile, Putin has blamed Gorbachev for the demise of the USSR, which he considers the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe" of the 20th century.
And while Gorbachev himself did not comment on Putin's decision to invade Ukraine, his foundation called for peace negotiations, saying "there is nothing more precious in the world than human lives."
Only a handful of modern Russian leaders were not granted state funerals.
The last to be denied the honor was Khrushchev, who was deposed in 1964 after his attempts to roll back Stalinist reforms and who died after living in seclusion in 1971. His funeral was held in semi-secret because the Soviet authorities were concerned about the protests.
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Putin's reaction to Gorbachev's death could not have been more different than after the death of Yeltsin, the man who hand-picked him as his successor when he was a little-known former KGB agent.
When Yeltsin died in 2007, Putin almost immediately set up a special commission to organize a state funeral, declared a day of national mourning and ordered flags to be flown at half-staff.
All Russian television and radio channels were advised to cancel entertainment programming and ordered to broadcast the funeral live.
Dozens of foreign dignitaries and former world leaders attended, including former US Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, former British and Canadian Prime Ministers John Major and Jean Chrétien, and former German President Horst Koehler.
Meanwhile, Gorbachev is unlikely to have many foreign VIP guests at his funeral.
In retaliation for Western sanctions, imposed on Russia by Western countries over the war against Ukraine, Moscow has banned hundreds of foreign officials from entering Russia.
The country's long list of currently barred leaders includes US President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, outgoing UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his predecessor Theresa May, as well as like his likely successor Liz Truss, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and many others.
Vladimir Putin