Yeltsin 'a liar,' says Gorbachev

Gorbachev: He tried to control everything I did

LONDON, England -- Ten years after he stepped down as president of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev called the man who replaced him -- Boris Yeltsin -- an untrustworthy liar.

"While Yeltsin was in office, he tried to control everything I did," Gorbachev told the BBC in a televised interview.

"My phones were bugged, regional governors were told not to meet me, I was even banned from appearing on live television," said Gorbachev, whose resignation put an end to the Soviet Union.

The enmity between the two men goes back to the 1980s, when they clashed over the pace of reforms in the struggling Soviet Union, and Gorbachev recited a litany of complaints about Yeltsin.

"He always said he was against the idea of privileges, but Russian czars didn't have the kind of privileges that Yeltsin had," Gorbachev said. "Yeltsin is a strange man, full of tricks, and he's a liar, you just can't trust him."

However, Gorbachev praised Yeltsin's hand-picked successor, President Vladimir Putin.

He said Putin had helped bring stability to a battered Russia and praised his moves toward a warmer relationship with the United States as bold.

Gorbachev also suggested his own relationship with Putin was warmer than his soured connection to Yeltsin. Under Putin, he said, he even has a special hotline he can use to call the Kremlin.

"Putin is clearly a talented and mature politician -- he's cautious, and he knows how to listen," Gorbachev said. "Sometimes he and I get together to discuss different issues."

The last leader of the Soviet Union recalled his resignation as "the most dramatic day of my life."

"In human terms it was a real blow," he said. "I had to keep calm but inside I was full of emotion."