What Putin has been able to do over the past year inspires me

Mikhail Gorbachev

He said that the perpetrators of the August 1991 coup were pursuing selfish interests and used the idea of saving the Soviet Union merely as a cover.

But Mr Gorbachev was full of praise for President Putin, who he said had the correct strategy and was acting in the interests of the majority of Russians.

He reiterated that his Russian Social Democratic Party would support Mr Putin at the next presidential elections.

Caution

"What he has been able to do over the past year inspires me," he said.

Gorbachev said Putin inspired him

"I like the caution with which Putin works to implement social and economic reforms."

He dismissed claims that fear was returning to Russian society under Mr Putin.

"It is the nomenklatura that is trembling because it's afraid of losing its perks," he said.

Yeltsin criticised

But Mr Gorbachev was far from complimentary about former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, both for his role after the coup and as a reformer.

He said that Mr Yeltsin had speeded up the disintegration of the Soviet Union so that Russia could rely on its vast natural resources to advance faster.

Mr Yeltsin did not "take the road of strengthening the democratic gains" of perestroika during his eight-year rule, he added.

Mr Gorbachev said he had not seen his successor since December 1991, when he was given 24 hours to leave the Kremlin.

Tanks

Mr Yeltsin was seen as the main victor in the coup attempt.

Yeltsin urged Russians to defend their parliament

Mr Gorbachev's leadership was undermined by several of his own ministers, who sent tanks into the streets of Moscow on 19 August.

He was placed under house arrest in his holiday home.

But the coup plotters failed, as Mr Yeltsin brought thousands of Muscovites out onto the streets to defend the Russian parliament.

Mr Gorbachev was released and returned to Moscow, but his authority was now sinking just as Mr Yeltsin's was soaring.

Mr Yeltsin banned the activities of the Soviet Communist Party, of which Mr Gorbachev had been general secretary, on Russian soil.

In December, the Soviet Union itself was disbanded and Mr Gorbachev resigned.