Boris Yeltsin - RIP

From The Washington Post:

Former Russian Leader Boris Yeltsin, 76, Dies

Russia's first post-Communist president engineered the final collapse of the Soviet Union and pushed for democracy and a market economy.

He was also a massively corrupt drunk, but he did stand on that tank and nothing can ever take that away from him.

It is unfortunate that the move toward democracy which Yeltsin risked his life for seems to have failed. But while the old USSR was a deadly threat the new Russian Republic is only a serious annoyance. In the great scheme of things you have to call that progress of some kind.