Sakharov Chides Gorbachev

AMSTERDAM —  Soviet dissident Andrei D. Sakharov sent a letter to Mikhail S. Gorbachev criticizing him for his handling of recent ethnic unrest in the Soviet Union, according to a human rights group here.

The Soviet authorities’ response to ethnic grievances proves that “glasnost appears to be crushed when it is most needed,” wrote the Nobel Prize-winning physicist. The letter was written in April but not publicized until now, according to the Amsterdam-based Bukovsky Foundation, which distributed excerpts of the letter translated into English. Sakharov’s letter referred to unrest in Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region, where ethnic Armenians clashed with Azerbaijanis in February.