Boris Yeltsin, former Russian president, dies

04/23/2007

By Maura Reynolds,
LA Times Staff Writer
April 23, 2007


MOSCOW -- Boris N. Yeltsin, the burly, bearish peasant who struck the deathblow that shattered the Soviet Union and served as the first president of the shrunken, disorderly Russia that emerged from it ruins, died today. He was 76.

The Interfax news agency confirmed Yeltsin's death, saying he died at 3:45 p.m. of "cardiovascular inefficiency," but gave no further information.

Yeltsin was the first leader in Russian history -- medieval, imperial or Soviet -- to be democratically elected. He was also the first to voluntarily relinquish power.