Former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev, one of the original signatories of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty along with former President Ronald Reagan, said Sunday that President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the treaty, which Trump announced Saturday, was “not the work of a great mind.”
In an interview with the Russian outlet Interfax that was flagged and translated by The New York Times and other outlets, Gorbachev, 87, wondered aloud: “Is it really that hard to understand that rejecting these agreements is, as the people say, not the work of a great mind.”
Gorbachev called Trump’s decision “a mistake” and “very strange.”
“Do they really not understand in Washington what this can lead to?” he asked.
“All agreements aimed at nuclear disarmament and limiting nuclear weapons must be preserved, for the sake of preserving life on earth,” he added, per the Times.
