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Former Supreme Soviet chairman Ruslan Khasbulatov dies

The late leader was a close ally of Yeltsin in the dying days of the Soviet Union

Published: Wed 4 Jan 2023, 12:12 AM

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  • AFP

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Former Soviet Parliament Chairman Ruslan Khasbulatov (right) with late Russian President Boris Yeltsin. – AFP

Former Soviet Parliament Chairman Ruslan Khasbulatov (right) with late Russian President Boris Yeltsin. – AFP

Former Supreme Soviet Chairman Ruslan Khasbulatov -- a close ally of Russian president Boris Yeltsin before turning against him in 1993 -- has died, state television said on Tuesday.

Khasbulatov, an ethnic Chechen, died at his home outside Moscow aged 80, the television report said, citing relatives.

Prominent rights activist Alexander Cherkasov said that Khasbulatov died Tuesday, but did not provide a cause of death.

Khasbulatov's body will be taken to his native Chechen village of Tolstoi-Yurt, he said on Facebook.

Khasbulatov was a close ally of Yeltsin in the dying days of the Soviet Union.

Khasbulatov was appointed speaker of parliament after the Soviet Union's fall in 1991 by then-president Yeltsin, and the two resisted the August 1991 coup together.

But Yeltsin and Khasbulatov quickly became political rivals -- with the power struggle culminating in the 1993 October revolt when Yeltsin sent tanks to storm the parliament building.

Khasbulatov was briefly imprisoned after the rebellion. He was amnestied in 1994 but his political career was over.

"Yeltsin essentially ruined my life," mass-circulation newspaper Argumenty i Fakty quoted Khasbulatov as saying in 2014.



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