Ruslan Khasbulatov, the last Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR, has died aged 80 at his Moscow region residence, Kommersant reports citing his relatives.
Ruslan Khasbulatov. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Khasbulatov was born in 1942 in Chechnya’s Grozny. Two years later, his family was forcibly transferred to Kazakhstan as part of the operation aiming to deport the Chechens and Ingush. He moved to Moscow in 1962.
In 1965, Khasbulatov graduated from Moscow State University’s law faculty. In 1980, he obtained his PhD in economics. In 1978, he started his career as a university lecturer with the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics
In March 1990, Khasbulatov was elected a people’s deputy of the Russian SFSR. In October 1991, he became the 11th and last Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR.
In 1994, Khasbulatov was appointed as head of the world economy department at the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics.
Khasbulatov was involved in the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt (August Coup) and opposed the State Committee on the State of Emergency. In an address to the Russian people, Khasbulatov, Boris Yeltsin, and Ivan Silayev qualified the committee’s actions as a coup d’état. Khasbulatov backed Yeltsin then, but 10 years later in an interview with Radio Liberty he said that he was dissatisfied with the draft of the New Union Treaty.
