Constitutional Assembly chairman and first elected mayor of Saint Petersburg
"Volodya, just don't turn to bronze" — last words to Putin, February 2000
Anatoly Sobchak was a legal scholar and democratic reformer who became the first democratically elected mayor of Saint Petersburg (1991–1996) and co-authored the 1993 Constitution of the Russian Federation as chairman of the Constitutional Assembly. A popular Leningrad State University law professor whose students included Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, he was elected to the Congress of People's Deputies in 1989 and co-chaired the Inter-Regional Deputies Group alongside Andrei Sakharov and Boris Yeltsin. During the August 1991 coup he organized resistance in Leningrad, negotiating with the military commander to keep troops off the streets and rallying 200,000 citizens on Palace Square. Corruption allegations forced him into exile in Paris from 1997 until Putin, then prime minister, secured his return in 1999.
Career timeline
1989–1990USSR People's Deputy
1989–1990Co-chair, Inter-Regional Deputies Group (with Sakharov & Yeltsin)
The Supreme Soviet chairman who stood with Yeltsin against the coup, then fell to Yeltsin's tanks
During the October 1993 siege of the White House, when Yeltsin offered safety guarantees, Khasbulatov replied: 'I need no guarantees, I can offer guarantees to Yeltsin myself.'
Ruslan Khasbulatov was a Chechen-born Soviet economist and Russian politician who became the last chairman of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet. On the day of the August 1991 coup, he was Yeltsin's closest ally: he personally drafted the appeal 'To the Citizens of Russia' and helped organize the defense of the White House. After the Soviet collapse, however, he turned the parliament into the center of opposition to Yeltsin's economic reforms and concentration of power, leading to the 1993 constitutional crisis in which he and Vice-President Rutskoy commanded the parliamentary resistance until tanks shelled the building and they were arrested. Amnestied in 1994, he left politics and returned to academia, teaching world economics at his alma mater.
Career timeline
1965Graduated from the Faculty of Law, Moscow State University
1970–1990Professor and head of the Department of International Economic Relations, Moscow Institute of National Economy (Plekhanov)
1990.03Elected RSFSR People's Deputy from the Grozny constituency
1990.06–1991.10First Deputy Chairman of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet
1991.07–10Acting Chairman of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet
1991.10–1993.10Chairman of the RSFSR/Russian Federation Supreme Soviet
1994–2023Head of the Department of World Economics, Plekhanov Russian University of Economics
A ruler who recast the loss of the Soviet Union as a narrative of state restoration
“The collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”
Vladimir Putin is a Russian politician and former Soviet security officer who rose to national power amid the crises of the 1990s. Alternating between the presidency and premiership, he strengthened federal and presidential authority while making the restoration of Russia’s international influence a central narrative of rule. In 2005, he called the Soviet collapse “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,” a remark that condensed his memory of dissolution as a Russian experience of loss and dislocation. His rule also narrowed political competition and independent media while expanding the state’s military interventions abroad.
Career timeline
1975–1991Officer, KGB of the Soviet Union
1990–1996Head of the Committee for External Relations and senior deputy official, Saint Petersburg administration
1998–1999Director, Federal Security Service (FSB)
1999Secretary, Security Council of the Russian Federation
A Russian general shaped by obedience and uncompromising war
In August 1991, three protesters died when the armored column he commanded collided with a barricade in a Moscow tunnel.
Sergey Surovikin is a Russian military commander who began as a late-Soviet officer and rose to the highest levels of the post-Soviet armed forces. During the August 1991 coup attempt, he led a Taman Division BMP battalion into a Moscow tunnel where three protesters died in the confrontation; he was detained, but charges were dropped on the grounds that he had followed orders. He later commanded in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Syria, and Ukraine, gaining recognition for operational effectiveness alongside scrutiny over civilian harm. His career traces one route by which the Soviet command structure survived its state’s dissolution and reappeared in Russia’s militarized power.
Career timeline
1987Graduated from the Omsk Higher Combined-Arms Command School; platoon and company commander in the Taman Guards Motor Rifle Division
1989–1991Served in Afghanistan; commander of the 1st Motor Rifle Battalion, Taman Division
1991Commanded a BMP battalion deployed in Moscow during the August coup; detained after the tunnel clash and later cleared
1995–2002Studied at the Frunze Military Academy and General Staff Academy; held commands in Tajikistan and Chechnya
2017–2021Commanded Russian forces in Syria; appointed Aerospace Forces commander-in-chief and promoted to Army General
2022–2023Commanded Russia’s Southern Group and then the joint force in the invasion of Ukraine
2023–presentDeputy commander of the joint force; later removed as Aerospace Forces chief and placed at the Defence Ministry’s disposal
