Former Russian president Boris Yeltsin has died at the age of 76 from a heart attack.Mr Yeltsin, who had long been ailing, played a key role in the collapse of the Soviet Union and introduced free-market democracy to Russia.
Presidential medical service chief Sergei Mironov says the former president died at 3:45 pm local time in Moscow's Central Clinical Hospital of coronary and vascular failure.
Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet president who Mr Yeltsin effectively forced from office, has paid a mixed tribute to the landmark Russian leader, while the US and Britain have hailed him.
"I offer my deepest condolences to the family of a man on whose shoulders rested many great deeds for the good of the country and serious mistakes - a tragic fate," Mr Gorbachev was quoted by Interfax as saying.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair says Mr Yeltsin was remarkable.
"It is with sadness that I learned of the death of former president Yeltsin," Mr Blair said in a statement issued by his office.
"He was a remarkable man who saw the need for democracy and economic reform and in defending that reform, he played a vital role at a crucial time in Russia's history."
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has also praised Mr Yeltsin's historical role.
"He was an important figure in Russian history," Mr Gates said.
"No American, at least, will forget seeing him standing on the tank outside the White House resisting the coup attempt," he said, referring to the parliamentary headquarters in Moscow.
Mixed Reputation
A bear of a man with a penchant for flamboyant gestures, Mr Yeltsin will perhaps be best remembered around the world for clambering onto a tank sent into Moscow in 1991 by communist hardliners attempting a coup against Mr Gorbachev in the dying days of the Soviet Union.
That defiance galvanised crowds of pro-democracy supporters, ushering in the Soviet collapse in December 1991 and Mr Yeltsin's epic but chaotic eight-year rule as Russia's first democratically-elected president.
Faced with the near collapse of the once-mighty Soviet armed forces and social system, Mr Yeltsin tried to drag Russia into the modern age.
He forced the bankrupt communist economy to adopt capitalism, unleashed political pluralism and allowed a vibrant, freewheeling media.
That made Mr Yeltsin a hero to many in the west but his reputation increasingly suffered from reports of heavy drinking, secret hospitalisations after heart attacks and launching the disastrous Chechnya war.
Economic Problems
To this day, an overwhelming majority of Russians blame Mr Yeltsin for Russia's slide from superpower status to economic basket case and second fiddle to the US on the international stage.
His reforms led to rising unemployment, poverty and organised crime.
Tens of millions of people were cast into poverty, while corruption corroded support for democratic reforms.
In 1993, he dismissed Parliament but had to send tanks to enforce his decree.
A year later, he sent troops into Chechnya, which had declared independence. Thousands were killed.
His presidency was dogged by ill health. In 1996, he had heart surgery.
In 1998, his economic reforms collapsed.
Only the rise of Mr Yeltsin's successor, ex-KGB officer Vladimir Putin, has reversed Russia's feelings of humiliation.
Early Life
Born into a poor peasant family in an industrial region in the Ural mountains, MrYeltsin lived with his family in one room of a wooden hut.
He studied civil engineering and rose to become a successful construction manager before switching to work for the local Communist party.
Mr Gorbachev, looking for thrusting managers to re-invigorate Soviet rule, summoned him to Moscow to become the capital's party chief.
He was sacked for his maverick style but in 1989, he was elected to the new Soviet Congress of People's Deputies and in June 1991, he was elected president of Russia, still within the Soviet Union, in a landslide.
Two months later, he faced down tanks in the Moscow streets and six months after that, he signed a treaty with the leaders of Ukraine and Belarus abolishing the Soviet Union altogether.
Mr Yeltsin, triumphant, became president of a sovereign Russia.
Retirement
Mr Yeltsin's deteriorating health ultimately forced him to step aside in favour of then prime minister Putin.
He went into retirement with a surprise announcement on New Year's Eve, 1999, putting Mr Putin in his place in a long-planned retreat from public view.
He had the distinction of becoming the first Russian leader to step down voluntarily.
One of Mr Putin's first acts in office was to grant Mr Yeltsin immunity from prosecution, sparing him the fury of those who blamed him for trading away valuable state assets, starting two bloody wars in Chechnya and allowing the 1998 economic collapse.
The former president retained many of his privileges as head of state: health care, transportation and a team of personal assistants.
Russian press reports said he lived a quiet life hunting, playing some tennis and reading in his suburban residence in Barvikha, near Moscow, where he lived with his wife, Naina.
Former US president Bill Clinton and former German chancellor Helmut Kohl flew to Moscow for Mr Yeltsin's 75th birthday party but the event received little coverage in Russia.
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