Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was a Soviet and Russian politician who served as President of Russia from 1991 to 1999. He was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1961 to 1990. He lat
Official portrait, 1992
Yeltsin (second from left) with his childhood friends in the 1940s
In 1976, Yeltsin was interviewed by Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Communist Party, who decided that he was an appropriate choice to become First Secretary of the party's Sverdlovsk obkom.
Mikhail Gorbachev took office as the General Secretary of the Communist Party in 1985; he soon promoted Yeltsin to a job in Moscow.
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who has served as President of Russia since 2012, having previously served from 2000 to 2008. Putin also served as
Boris Yeltsin
…agreements with the United States. Amid growing internal pressure, he resigned by the end of 1999 and was succeeded as president by his chosen successor, Vladimir Putin, whom he had appointed prime minister a few months earlier. After leaving office, he kept a low profile and was accorded a state funeral upon his death…
Putin in the KGB, c. 1980
Putin as director of the Federal Security Service (FSB), 1998.