Russia: Death of Yeltsin - Timeline
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Timeline
- September 2004. Chechen separatists besiege a school in Beslan and at least 338 people, including many children are killed. In response a major reorganisation of Russia’s political structures is announced, the main thrust of which is to strengthen the presidency at the expense of regional power. Senior Western leaders express concern at the erosion of democracy in Russia and in the weekly newspaper, Moskovskie novosti, on Sept. 17 former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and former President Boris Yeltsin write separate essays calling for the preservation of Russia's democratic system.
- January 2000. Russia's new acting President, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, reshuffles his government in what is seen as an attempt to distance himself from the legacy of former President Boris Yeltsin.
- December 1999. Russia's President of eight-and-a-half years, Boris Yeltsin, resigns from office. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin becomes Russia's acting President. Yeltsin's unexpected resignation is widely attributed to his desire to secure maximum advantage in elections to the presidency for Putin, who had been designated as Yeltsin's chosen successor upon his appointment as Prime Minister in August. In an interview in Literaturnaya gazeta by Beghjet Pacolli, the chairman of Mabetex, a Swiss company responsible for extensive renovation work in the Kremlin, Pacolli confirms allegations that Mabetex had paid credit card bills amounting to some US$87,000 which had been accumulated by Yeltsin and his two daughters outside Russia over a period of four years.
- November 1999. President Yeltsin is once again hospitalised with a viral infection and acute bronchitis. Following treatment, he leaves for his residence outside Moscow later that day, but is forced to cancel a meeting with Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka for the signing of a proposed treaty of union between the two countries. He is taken to hospital for a second time in the month with what is described as pneumonia.
- October 1999. In the midst of the Chechen campaign President Yeltsin is taken to hospital suffering from what his officials describe as ‘flu and a high temperature'. He leaves hospital to recuperate at his residence outside Moscow.
- September 1999. A spate of bomb explosions occur and are blamed on terrorist activity stemming from the unsettled North Caucasus region of Russia. Two of the explosions destroy residential apartment blocks in Moscow. In total, the attacks kill 293 people in the space of two weeks. In response, Chechnya is again invaded by Russian forces at the end of September. Some observers, however, suggest that the explosions and the campaign in Chechnya had been deliberately provoked by the closest allies of Russian President Boris Yeltsin, including members of his immediate family, in an attempt to distract public attention from the mounting allegations of large-scale corruption against them.
- August 1999. President Yeltsin dismisses his fourth government in 17 months and nominates Vladimir Putin, the head of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and Secretary of the Security Council, as both Russia's Prime Minister-designate and as his preferred successor as Russian President.
- May 1999. An attempt to impeach President Yeltsin fails.
- January 1999. President Yeltsin receives hospital treatment for an acute bleeding stomach ulcer.
- November 1998. President Yeltsin is taken ill with pneumonia. The President's increasing weakness prompts his allies and former allies to unveil revelations about corruption within his inner circle in what appears to be a desperate internecine fight for position.
- April 1998. Following President Boris Yeltsin's unexpected dismissal of the entire Russian government, a tense stand-off between the President and the Russian State Duma over the latter's reluctance to confirm Yeltsin's nominee for Prime Minister, the 35-year old former Energy Minister Sergei Kiriyenko, ensues. Under the constitution, if the Duma rejects a nomination for Prime Minister on three occasions then the President has the right to dissolve it and call fresh elections, an option which Yeltsin had suggested that he would have no hesitation in exercising.
- March 1998. In a series of unexpected decrees, President Boris Yeltsin dismisses the entire Russian Cabinet.
- December 1997. President Yeltsin enters a sanatorium with what is described as "an acute viral infection".
- February 1997. Speculation is rife over an imminent Cabinet reshuffle, as President Yeltsin appears to reassert his authority following his long illness.
- January 1997. President Yeltsin is once again incapacitated by illness in January, prompting an attempt by legislators to remove him from office.
- November 1996. President Boris Yeltsin undergoes a successful multiple heart bypass operation.
- September 1996. President Yeltsin announces that he is to undergo heart surgery.
- August 1996. Boris Yeltsin is sworn in on Aug. 9. as President of the Russian Federation for a second term. The ceremony at the Kremlin in Moscow is overshadowed by a serious escalation of fighting in the breakaway republic of Chechnya and by mounting concerns over the President's health.
- July 1996. President Yeltsin wins the second round of voting in the Russian presidential elections.
- June 1996. President Yeltsin narrowly defeats his nearest rival, Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, in the first round of presidential elections but fails to achieve the necessary "50 per cent plus one" margin and is forced into a second-round run-off.
- May 1996. President Yeltsin and Chechen separatist leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev reach agreement on a fresh Chechen ceasefire.
- February 1996. President Yeltsin formally announces that he will run for a second presidential term.
- December 1995. President Yeltsin returns to his office in the Kremlin.
- October 1995. President Yeltsin is rushed to hospital with a recurrence of the heart problem which had caused his hospitalisation in July.
- August 1995. President Yeltsin returns to work after suffering a mild heart attack in July.
- July 1995. President Yeltsin is rushed to hospital after complaining of acute chest pains. Yeltsin's doctors state that he had suffered from cardiac ischaemia resulting from constricted arteries, an indicator of potential heart disease. A motion of impeachment, proposed against Yeltsin by the Communist Party, fails.
- May 1994. President Yeltsin approves a package of economic measures, having admitted that "the economy of Russia [is] unfortunately close to a crash".
- February 1994. The leaders of parliamentary resistance to Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who had been detained after the violence in Moscow in October 1993, are freed under an amnesty.
- November 1993. Russia's long-awaited draft constitution is published. The draft constitution envisages significantly increased powers for the President.
- October 1993. Serious armed clashes occur in Moscow between forces loyal to President Yeltsin and rebels protesting against his suspension of Parliament.
- September 1993. President Yeltsin suspends all "legislative, administrative and control functions" of the Russian Parliament and calls elections to a new State Duma.
- April 1993. President Yeltsin receives an important personal vote of confidence in a referendum, while also securing majority support for his socio-economic reform programme.
- August 1992. President Yeltsin announces a further stage in the Russian government's privatisation programme.
- December 1991. The Soviet Union is replaced by a Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), grouping 11 of the former constituent republics of the Union (but not Georgia) in a loose alliance, without central governing bodies. The Russian Federation takes over many of the functions of the former Union. The President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, resigns. Boris Yeltsin remains President of the Russian Federation.
- August 1991. Tanks are sent on to the streets of Moscow and other major cities as it is announced that President Mikhail Gorbachev has effectively been deposed. The takeover of power by conservative politicians lasts only three days. In this time it becomes clear that the military and state security forces are not all solidly behind the coup, especially in the face of popular resistance, with Russian Federation (RSFSR) President Boris Yeltsin setting himself at the head of protesters apparently willing to fight for the new freedoms brought about by the reforms of perestroika. As soon as Gorbachev is reinstated as President on Aug. 21, he is compelled by the increase in Yeltsin's political standing to acknowledge the need for a new state structure; the majority of the republics proclaim independence from the Soviet Union, and fundamental reforms begin of the government and the State Security Committee (KGB). Gorbachev resigns as the general secretary of the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union); the party's activities are suspended and its central committee dissolved.
- June 1991. Boris Yeltsin is elected President of Russia (RFSFR) in direct elections.
- April 1991. The Congress opens, but is adjourned after emergency votes concerning the confrontation taking place close to the Kremlin between security forces and pro-Yeltsin demonstrators. Two attempts to move a vote of no confidence in Yeltsin are defeated. Yeltsin effectively wins the argument for the creation of an elective presidency.
- May 1990. Yeltsin, a leading radical populist and one of President Mikhail Gorbachev's fiercest critics, is elected Chairman of the Russian Supreme Soviet, making him de facto President of the Russian Federation. This raises the prospect that Yeltsin might use the Russian presidency as an ultra-reformist power base from which to challenge Gorbachev's authority, making Russia a new element of instability in the already crisis-ridden Soviet Union. In July he stuns the congress by resigning his membership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). In a brief speech, he explains that as President of the Russian Federation he should be above party politics; he then strides dramatically from the congress hall.
- May 1986. Boris Yeltsin, the new Moscow party first secretary and a recent appointee to candidate membership of the central committee politburo, delivers a strongly worded denunciation of ‘time-servers in possession of party cards’ and blames a lack of courage on the part of certain party leaders to make an objective and timely assessment of the present state of affairs and their own roles.
- January 1986. Boris Yeltsin becomes first secretary of the Moscow city party committee.
