It is difficult to establish the total economic cost of the disaster. According to Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union spent 18 billion rubles (the equivalent of US$2.5 billion at that time, or $ in today's dollars) on containment and decontamination, virtually bankrupting itself. In 2005, the total cost over 30 years for Belarus which includes the monthly payments to liquidators, was estimated at US$235 billion; about $ in today's dollars given inflation rates. Gorbachev in April 2006 wrote "The nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl 20 years ago this month, even more than my launch of perestroika, was perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union."