Russian far-rightist Zhirinovsky dies at 75, saluted by Putin

Russian far-right politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, identified for provocative stunts and anti-Western tirades that stored him within the public eye for greater than three many years, has died after a protracted sickness, the speaker of parliament mentioned on Wednesday.

Zhirinovsky, 75, was admitted to hospital earlier this yr after contracting COVID-19, in keeping with Russian media, and was too sick to talk out publicly on the conflict in Ukraine.

But the grievances he had been voicing because the Nineteen Nineties discovered an echo in President Vladimir Putin’s more and more bitter rhetoric within the run-up to the Feb. 24 invasion, when the Kremlin chief repeatedly accused the West of dishonest and deceiving Russia.

“Always, in any audience, in the most heated discussions, he defended the patriotic position, the interests of Russia,” Putin mentioned in a tribute.

Zhirinovsky was identified for outrageous and headline-grabbing statements, together with threats to launch nuclear weapons in opposition to varied nations, seize Alaska from the United States, and increase Russia’s frontiers to the purpose the place its troopers might “wash their boots in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean”.