Gorbachev took a substantially changed approach to relations between Moscow and East Berlin, but Vyacheslav Kochemasov nevertheless remained in his ambassadorial post for more than five of the Perestroika-Glasnost years that ensued.

[3] It was later reported that on the evening of 9 November, he had tried, without success, to telephone Mikhail Gorbachev and then the Soviet Foreign Minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, for instructions.

In 1992 Kochemasov gave a remarkable interview to the western press, disclosing that as far back as 1986 a senior member of the East German government, Werner Krolikowski had told him, in confidence, that the situation in the country's SED Politburo had become "unbearable": policy decisions were totally driven by dogma, there was no longer any discussion, there was an absurd level of centralisation and an utterly implausible communications strategy.

He recalled that he had been invited to interpret an instruction from Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that long running demonstrations in Leipzig should be brought under control, regardless of how it was done.

The East German leader Erich Honecker and his successor Egon Krenz were unable to agree whether Gorbachev's instruction amounted to a mandate to suppress the Leipzig demonstration using force.

[8] The same interview included discussion on whether prosecuting of the country's former leaders for the killings of people trying to escape from East Germany represented a treaty breach by German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

[8] At the end of the interview, when pushed for an opinion, Kochemasov confirmed that in terms of the fundamental interests of the Soviet Union, he believed that Gorbachev had shown excessive and unnecessary weakness over German reunification.