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Gorbachev defends controversial legacy

Mikhail Gorbachev is remarkably serene about his record as the last leader of the Soviet Union.

He says he expected a different outcome, but he would do it all over again.

It was Mr Gorbachev's policies that sparked the 1989 revolutions which swept away communism in Eastern Europe.

But Russia, too, went through a metamorphosis - and after the loss of the Soviet empire two years later, it was the Soviet Union itself that fell apart.

The result is that for many Russians, Mr Gorbachev's years in the Kremlin remain bitterly contentious.