CRISISBOOM

By GREGORY L. WHITE

wsj.com

MOSCOW—Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev said he is “ashamed” with the way Russia is run today and warned the Kremlin could face an Egypt-style uprising.

Nearly two decades after his reforms led to the collapse of the Soviet Union, Mr. Gorbachev denounced Russia’s “ruling class” as “rich and dissolute,” in an interview published Wednesday in Novaya Gazeta, the opposition newspaper of which he is part-owner. “I’m ashamed for us and for the country,” he said.

He lambasted the Kremlin for eroding the free media and elections that he introduced in the 1980s, and warned that its grip on power could be threatened.

“If things continue the way they are, I think the probability of the Egyptian scenario will grow,” he said in a separate radio interview released Tuesday, referring to the popular rebellion that ousted longtime President Hosni Mubarak last week. “Here it could end even more Read more…