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President Ilves: Boris Yeltsin played a significant role in the birth of a new Russia

23.04.2007

President Toomas Hendrik Ilves sent condolences today to the Russian Head of State Vladimir Putin in connection with the death of Boris Yeltsin, the former President of the Russian Federation.

“It was with profound sadness that I learned today of the death of Boris Yeltsin, the first President of the Russian Federation,” the Estonian Head of State wrote. “President Yeltsin played a significant role in the dissolution of the Soviet Union as a totalitarian regime and the birth of a new Russia, whereby he contributed to democratic changes in Europe during the 1980s and 1990s.”

“I recall with gratitude President Yeltsin’s role in assisting in the peaceful restoration of Estonian independence in 1991 and his contribution to the removal of Russian Federation forces from Estonia in 1994,” wrote President Ilves in his expression of condolences. He expressed his profound sympathy and that of all of Estonia to Boris Yeltsin’s family and the entire Russian nation.

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