Mikhail Gorbachev strains his leg and cancels trip to Denmark

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev canceled a planned visit to Denmark after hurting his leg in a fall, his aide said Monday, adding that the injury was "nothing serious."

Photo: Mikhail Gorbachev strains his leg and cancels trip to Denmark

Gorbachev, 76, slipped and fell at his dacha outside Moscow on Saturday, straining his leg, Vadim Polyakov told The Associated Press. He said Gorbachev had been taken to a hospital but was back home.

"It's nothing serious," he said.

However, the injury prompted Gorbachev to call off a visit to Denmark, where he was to have appeared with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore on Tuesday to talk to Danish business leaders in Frederikshavn, 270 kilometers (170 miles) northwest of Copenhagen.

Gorbachev underwent surgery in Munich, Germany, in November for a blocked artery in the neck.

He has vowed to take it easier and cut down on foreign trips.

Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990, Gorbachev has maintained an active public life running the Gorbachev Foundation an organization devoted to international issues including globalization, security, weapons of mass destruction, environmental and natural resources and poverty, reports AP.

Gorbachev radically changed the Soviet Union with his liberal glasnost and perestroika reforms in the late 1980s, helping to unleash forces that pulled the country apart and led to his resignation in December 1991 as president of a nation that essentially had ceased to exist.