Boris Yeltsin

Biography

Boris Yeltsin was a Soviet and Russian politician who served as the first president of Russia from 1991 to 1999. He rose through the Communist Party ranks after joining in 1961 and became First Secretary of the party's Sverdlovsk Oblast committee in 1976, initially supporting perestroika reforms but later calling for a transition to democracy. Yeltsin played a key role in the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, leading Russia to become an independent state under his presidency.