The first president of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, said that the country could have been saved even after the August 1991 coup with the help of the formation of the Union of Sovereign States. TASS reports.

According to him, the Soviet authorities initially underestimated the scale of the problems of interethnic relations in the Soviet Union, relations between the center and the republics. Also, the government did not immediately come to the conclusion that the Union needed to be updated.

“Security, defense, transport network, a single currency, ensuring human rights under the draft union treaty were in the sphere of the union structures. I am sure that this was a viable option, most of the republics would have supported it, but the coup of the State Emergency Committee thwarted this opportunity, ”Gorbachev said.

The politician noted that even after the putsch he believed that the Union could be preserved and suggested that an agreement on the Union of Sovereign States be reached.

Gorbachev clarified that the Union of Sovereign States would become a confederal state with even broader powers of the republics. For example, the republics could enter the UN, while the Union would retain its seat on the Security Council. In addition, the unity of the armed forces and control over nuclear weapons would be preserved.

Earlier, Gorbachev answered a question about the involvement of the West in the collapse of the USSR.

bbabo.Net