Mikhail Gorbachev major campaign to limit alcohol consumption, which Gorbachev—who believed it would improve health and work efficiency—oversaw. His wife keenly supported the measure. As a result, crime rates fell and life expectancy grew slightly between 1986 and 1987. The reform had significant costs to the Soviet economy, resulting in losses of up to $100 billion between 1985 and 1990. Gorbachev later considered the campaign to have been an error. In April 1986 the Chernobyl disaster occurred; in the immediate aftermath, officials fed Gorbachev incorrect information to downplay the incident. As the scale of the disaster became apparent, 336,000 people were evacuated
Mikhail Gorbachev Crimea in March 2014: "While Crimea had previously been joined to Ukraine [in 1954] based on the Soviet laws, which means [Communist] party laws, without asking the people, now the people themselves have decided to correct that mistake." On 10 October 2014, it was reported that Gorbachev was in hospital and in deteriorating health. However, on 16 October he granted an interview with Russian state newspaper "Rossiyskaya Gazeta", opining on the Ukraine crisis and calling for a repeal of the sanctions. On 8 November 2014, Gorbachev attended an event near the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin to mark 25 years since the