A group of Russian MPs have formally requested prosecutors investigate former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev for treason over the breakup of the Soviet Union, one lawmaker said Thursday.

Ivan Nikitchuk, a deputy with the Communist party, said recent events and the Ukraine crisis in particular have led five MPs, including two from the ruling United Russia party, to ask Prosecutor General Yury Chaika to probe Gorbachev, 83.

"We asked to prosecute him and those who helped him destroy the Soviet Union for treason of national interests," Nikitchuk told AFP, adding that Soviet citizens in 1991 were against the country's breakup.

Seeking to create a more open and prosperous Soviet Union through glasnost and perestroika, Gorbachev ended up inadvertently unleashing forces that swept the country he had sought to preserve from the map and himself from power.

"The consequences of that destruction can be felt today in the conflicts that we have seen," said Nikitchuk. He added that this included not only Ukraine but also in other former Soviet countries over the past two decades.

"What is happening in Ukraine can happen in Russia, too," said Nikitchuk. "This pushed us to write to the Prosecutor General, so that professional lawyers rather than historians investigate the events of 1991."

AFP