Moscow: Ruslan Khasbulatov, the rebel leader who overthrew Russia's first post-Soviet president, has passed away. He was 80 years old. Russian state television announced on Tuesday that Khasbulatov had passed away.
Khasbulatov, a Chechen, was elected Speaker of the Parliament of the Russian Federation just before the collapse of the Soviet Union. First, he wholeheartedly supported Russian President Boris Yeltsin and stood by him after a failed coup in August 1991 by hardline Soviet officials.
Relations between Yeltsin and Khasbulatov deteriorated following the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991, after clashing over economic policies and other issues.
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Khasbulatov and Vice President Alexander Rutskoi joined forces in September 1993 to oppose the regime of Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin responded by dissolving parliament, and Khasbulatov convened a meeting in which it was decided that Yeltsin's rule was over.
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The crisis came to a head on October 3–4, 1993, when members of parliament clashed with police in the streets of Moscow and attempted to storm a state television facility, leading to a bloody shootout with soldiers. Hundreds of MPs and their supporters were detained after Yeltsin ordered tanks to fire on parliament.
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Khasbulatov was also detained and charged, but was released in February 1994 as a result of an amnesty. He left politics and went back to teaching economics, which was his previous position before his rapid rise to power. Since then, Khasbalatov has kept a low profile and refrained from criticizing the government.