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Boris Yeltsin dies - Kremlin
23/04/2007 15:51 - (SA)
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| A 2006 file picture of former Russian president Boris Yeltsin watching the Davis Cup final in Moscow. (Ivan Sekretarev, AP) |
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Moscow - Boris Yeltsin - who engineered the final collapse of the Soviet Union and pushed Russia to embrace democracy and a market economy as the country's first post-Communist president - has died, a Kremlin official said on Monday. He was 76.
Kremlin spokesperson Alexander Smirnov told The Associated Press that had Yeltsin died, but gave no cause of death or further information. The Interfax news agency quoted an unidentified medical source as saying he had died of heart failure.
Although Yeltsin initially was admired abroad for his defiance of the monolithic social system, many Russians will remember him mostly for presiding over the steep decline of their nation.
He was a contradictory figure, rocketing to popularity in the Communist era on pledges to fight corruption - but proving unable, or unwilling, to prevent the looting of state industry as it moved into private hands during his nine years as Russia's first freely elected president.
He also led Russia into a humiliating war against separatist rebels in Chechnya that ended with Russia's pull-out.
Yeltsin, who suffered from severe heart problems during his time in office, resigned on New Year's Eve 1999, several months before his term was to end. His prime minister, Vladimir Putin, became acting president and was elected to the post in the spring.
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