AP TELEVISION

++NIGHT SHOTS++

Berlin (at former site of Checkpoint Charlie) - 7 November 2014

1. Crowd at former border crossing known as Checkpoint Charlie

2. Original piece of the Berlin Wall being transported for official ceremony by Cinema for Peace for former Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev

3. Plaque with inscription reading (English) "25 Years of the Fall of the Berlin Wall Hero of Peace Mikhail Gorbachew"

4. Plaque with people in the background

5. Gorbachev arriving for ceremony

6. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Mikhail Gorbachev, Former Soviet Union President:

"We must always remember the lessons of the past and we must learn from the past and we have learnt from the past that as long as the Russians and Germans understand each other, as long as our relationship is good, then everyone benefits. This means we have to make sure that it stays so. I wish you all happiness, health and success and I am proud that I helped in some way, so that we can live the way we live today and that our relations are how they are. I wish you all well."

7. Cutaway of journalists

8. Gorbachev placing hands on part of the original Berlin Wall to create hand print

9. Close-up of Gorbachev's hands

10. Gorbachev leaving ceremony

11. Gorbachev's hand print on plaque

12. Hand print plaque surrounded by journalists

13. White balloons marking the place where the Berlin Wall formerly stood

14. Balloon structures

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said on Friday the collapse of the Berlin Wall demonstrated how important good relations between Germany and Russia were for the entire world.

Gorbachev spoke to a crowd at the former site of Berlin's famous Checkpoint Charlie crossing point, two days before the 25th anniversary of the Wall's fall.

He was honoured by Cinema of Peace Foundation for his role in bringing down the Iron Curtain between East and West Europe.

The elder statesman, who kept Soviet troops stationed in East Germany in their barracks the night of 9 November 1989, said "as long as Russians and Germans understand each other, as long as our relationship is good, then everyone benefits."

Ties between Berlin and Moscow have been strained recently by the conflict in eastern Ukraine.