The flag of Crimea flies at a military parade in Moscow

Mikhail Gorbachev has backed Vladimir Putin’s seizure of Crimea and accused America of “rubbing its hands with glee” over the demise of the Soviet Union.

In an interview in today’s Sunday Times magazine, the last Soviet leader says he would have acted the same way as Putin if he had found himself in a similar situation.

“I’m always with the free will of the people and most in Crimea wanted to be reunited with Russia,” Gorbachev says.

Putin seized the peninsula from Ukraine in March 2014 in the chaos that followed the ousting of Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s pro-Kremlin President, in a popular pro-western up­rising.

Gorbachev, now aged 85, is frail, suffers from diabetes and poor hearing and walks with a stick.

He has just released