The political veteran was 75 years old. Parliament Speaker Volodin speaks of an “extraordinary personality” without whom the development of the modern political system in Russia would have been unthinkable.
Prominent Russian politician and right-wing populist Vladimir Zhirinovsky is dead. Parliamentary leader Vyacheslav Volodin said in Moscow on Wednesday that the leader of the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party faction of Russia had died after a long and serious illness. Zhirinovsky was 75 years old. The politician, known as a right-wing agitator, had been in the hospital for weeks.
He was considered one of Russia’s most flamboyant politicians – also because of his undiplomatic speeches, which he often delivered screaming with a red face. Zhirinovsky has been in Russian politics since 1991 and has contested the presidential election six times, most recently in 2018, when he finished third with 5.65%. In the early 1990s, his party was the strongest force in Russia’s State Duma, the parliament that was then seen as the Russian president’s counterweight. In the period that followed, not only did the Duma lose weight, but the LDPR as well.
In Russia there was already a stir on March 25 because the politician’s death had been accidentally reported. Parliament leader Volodin denied the report at the time. Now Volodin confirmed the death on his Telegram channel.
(APA/AFP/ed.)