Aleksandr Vladimirovich Rutskoy
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Aleksandr Vladimirovich Rutskoy (ru: Александр Владимирович Руцкой)(born September 16, 1945, Kursk, Russia) was a Soviet military officer and a Russian politician. On a visit to Israel in the early 1990s Rutskoi said his mother was Jewish.
He was a Soviet air force colonel during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, where he was injured. As a soldier and a populist, he was chosen by Boris Yeltsin to be his vice presidential running mate in the 1991 Russian presidential election.
Rutskoy was the Vice President of Russia from July 10, 1991 to September 1, 1993, when he was sacked by president Boris Yeltsin on corruption charges. The real issue, however, was that Rutskoy sided with the parliament during the Russian constitutional crisis of 1993, which was triggered when Yeltsin tried to dissolve the parliament on September 21, the parliament responded by declaring Yeltsin's presidency unconstitutional and appointing Rutskoy acting president.
Rutskoy's interim presidency was never acknowledged outside Russia. Yeltsin saw the appointment as an attempted coup d'état, and after violent rioting on October 2-3, Yeltsin's troops stormed the parliament and arrested Rutskoy and the leaders of the parliament on October 4.
A few months later, February 26, 1994, all leaders of the anti-Yeltsin campaign received a pardon and were released from jail.
Rutskoy was a central figure in the aggravation of the Transnistria military conflict. His 1992 visit in Tiraspol delivered the clear message of the Russian sustain, including military support, for the Russian population of the Moldavian breakaway entity.
He was banned from running in 2000 Kursk's governor elections on a technicality for failing to register his car.
Template:Russia-bio-stubfr:Alexandre Routskoï id:Aleksandr Vladimirovich Rutskoy ja:アレクサンドル・ルツコイ