Russian president Vladimir Putin paid tribute to Mr Yeltsin as a ”courageous national leader” who played a huge role in the birth of Russian democracy: ”He was the first Russian president. With this title he has for ever entered the history of the country and the whole world.

”A man passed away, thanks to whom a whole new epoch began. A new democratic Russia was born, a free state open to the world. A state in which power truly belongs to the people.