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Gennady Burbulis
Photo: Emile Ducke / DER SPIEGEL
He was one of the most important comrades-in-arms of Russia's first President Boris Yeltsin and co-signer of the dissolution document of the Soviet Union: Gennady Burbulis.
He has now died at the age of 76.
As the Azerbaijani news agency Turan reports, Burbulis died on Sunday in the capital of the Caucasus Republic of Azerbaijan, Baku, during a business trip.
Burbulis is considered one of the most important personalities of the perestroika period in Russia in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
As one of President Boris Yeltsin's closest associates, he has held positions including foreign minister and deputy prime minister.
In 1991, together with Yeltsin, he signed the Belovezh Agreement, in which Belarus, Ukraine and Russia decided to dissolve the Soviet Union.
Burbulis is said to have been the author of the formulation that »the USSR as a subject of international law and geopolitical reality ends its existence«.
Politically active well into the Putin era
Burbulis convinced Yeltsin of the need for economic reforms under Yegor Gaidar - which went down in history as shock therapy.
He later lost his influence over the Russian President and was dismissed as an advisor at the end of 1992.
As a member of the Duma, deputy governor and senator in the Russian Federation Council, he was still active in Russian politics well into the era of President Vladimir Putin.
To the end he denied the possibility of a revival of the Soviet Union.
In one of his last interviews, Burbulis described this possibility as »nonsense and utopia.
Restoring the USSR is impossible.«
tfb/dpa
