Influential Russian Regional Leader Killed in Helicopter Crash

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, April 28, 2002

Influential Russian Regional Leader Killed in Helicopter Crash

Alexander Lebed, a key Russian regional leader, was killed in a helicopter crash on Sunday, Russian Emergency Situations Ministry reported.

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Alexander Lebed, a key Russian regional leader, was killed in a helicopter crash on Sunday, Russian Emergency Situations Ministry reported.

A helicopter with 14 people aboard, including the 52-year-old Lebed, who was governor of Siberia's Krasnoyarsk region, crashed Sunday morning in the Yermakovo District in Krasnoyarsk. Six people were killed in the crash and others in critical conditions.

President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov have conveyed condolences to the families and relatives of all those killed in the catastrophe, the presidential spokesman Alexei Gromov said.

He said the president also instructed to set up an investigation commission for the incident which would be chaired by Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu

After 25 years of service in the military, Lebed turned to politics in December 1995, being elected a member of the State Duma. Riding a wave of popular discontent, he came in third in the 1996 presidential elections and later was named head of the presidential security council by first Russian President Boris Yeltsin. In May 1998, he won election as governor of Krasnoyarsk.

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