MOSCOW: Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, is undergoing a planned checkup in hospital linked to his battle against diabetes, his spokesman said on Tuesday.

“Gorbachev is undergoing a general examination,” Gorbachev Foundation spokesman Vladimir Polyakov told AFP.

“Sometimes this happens once a year, and sometimes twice a year,” Polyakov said. “There were no special reasons for the hospitalization.”

The 82-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner who became Soviet leader in 1985 instituted the political and economic reforms that became known as glasnost (openness) and perestroika (rebuilding).

The reforms transformed society throughout the Soviet bloc countries, giving people their first taste of Western culture and resulting in an independent press boom across the 15 republics of the former USSR.

Gorbachev served as Soviet leader until 1991, when his reforms gave the Moscow-controlled republics enough strength to declare independence, and for Russia together with Belarus and Ukraine to sign an agreement on the Soviet Union’s dissolution.

He has since lamented the Soviet Union’s collapse, explaining that his reforms were meant to save the crumbling country through modernization instead of breaking it apart.

He was replaced in the Kremlin by Russia’s first president Boris Yeltsin, his bitter rival who favored independence for each of the ex-Soviet states.

Since then, Gorbachev has played only a marginal role in Russian politics despite his broad recognition abroad.

Most recently, Gorbachev urged Russian President Vladimir Putin not to run for a third term last year.

The Gorbachev Foundation spokesman said the media were blowing reports of Gorbachev’s poor health out of proportion.

“I repeat once again: there is no reason for concern,” Polyakov said.