Gorbachev on U.S.-Russia Relations: ‘We May Not Live Through These Days’

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, called Wednesday for a U.S.-Russia summit to thaw relations between the two countries in the wake of the Ukraine crisis.

Gorbachev, whose policies played a key role in ending the Cold War as well as democratizing Russia and the satellite states of the former Soviet Union, warned that the standoff between the U.S. and Russia could lead to another Cold War, Reuters reports.

“This is extremely dangerous, with tensions as high as they are now. We may not live through these days: someone could lose their nerve,” he wrote Wednesday in the government daily Rossiyskaya Gazet.

MORE: Vladimir Putin, TIME Person of the Year runner-up

“I suggest the leaders of Russia and the United States think about holding a summit with a broad agenda, without preliminary conditions,” Gorbachev added.

The enmity between Moscow and the West is the worst since the Cold War ended, with the United States, NATO and European Union accusing Russia of fomenting unrest in eastern Ukraine.

[Reuters]