Boris Yeltsin, the first-ever popularly elected President in Russian history after triggering the final collapse of the Soviet Union, has died.Announcing the death of the ailing Yeltsin(76), Kremlin spokesman Alexander Sairnov gave no cause for the death or further information. The Interfax news agency cited an unidentified medical source as saying he had died of heart attack.Yeltsin was widely hailed as an effective reformer but his era was a traumatic period in Russian history. His rule was marked by widespread corruption, economic collapse and enormous political and social problems.In June 1991, vodka-loving Yeltsin came to power on a wave of high expectations. On June 12 Yeltsin was elected president of the Russian Federation with 57 per cent of the vote, becoming the first popularly elected president in Russian history.Yeltsin's great moments came when he stood atop a tank to resist an attempted coup by Communists in August 1991 and engineered the peaceful end of the Soviet state on December 25 that year. But Yeltsin never recovered his popularity after the historic break-up of the USSR.(PTI)
