patrick.net

Ultranationalist Russian political leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky has died aged 75, after a career built on fiery remarks and absurd antics.

He stood for the presidency six times and was part of the official opposition tolerated by President Vladimir Putin.

Last December he appeared to predict Russia would attack Ukraine.

He claimed to have had eight Covid-19 vaccinations. He contracted coronavirus and died weeks after being admitted to hospital with pneumonia.

...

In the early 1990s he claimed he dreamt of the day "when Russian soldiers can wash their boots in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean". In one of his final appearances before MPs, he said Russia would invade Ukraine and predicted almost to the day when it would happen.

"At 04:00 on 22 February you'll feel [our new policy]. I'd like 2022 to be peaceful. But I love the truth, for 70 years I've said the truth. It won't be peaceful. It will be a year when Russia once again becomes great."

...

Before he entered politics, he ran a Soviet state-approved Jewish cultural organisation. His Liberal Democratic Party of Russia was the country's first official post-communist political party and was widely viewed first as a Soviet stooge. Russians and the West were shocked when his party won Russia's first democratic elections in 1993.

...

Political commentator Konstantin Eggert labelled him "the Kremlin's pocket nationalist and scandal-monger". With hindsight, said Eggert, his success in 1993 was a precursor of the "barbaric revanchism" that had led to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Zhirinovsky told the BBC in 2018 that Ukraine was Russian territory: "It's our territory; it's our people. It's part of our country."

...
When a respected Russian journalist accused Zhirinovsky in 2018 of groping him 12 years earlier, the politician's son condemned the remarks as slander.