Gennady Purpolis in 1991-1992 was Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, That is, the unofficial vice president and first deputy prime minister (Yeltsin combines the duties of president and prime minister – editor).
He was considered one of the main architects of the Russian reforms of the early 1990s. He tirelessly warned that Russia could collapse, As happened in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed if its authorities did not modernize the country.
Purpolis, who accompanied Yeltsin as he climbed a tank to lead opponents of the Djanjiu coup in August 1991, He repeated for several years that in Russia there is no democracy, civil society and media freedom.
In a media interview years later, a former Yeltsin adviser admitted that in the rush of reforms in the early 1990s, insufficient attention had been paid to preventing the communist elite regrouping and maintaining their positions in the new Russia.
As evaluated it Russia lost its greatest achievement of the early Yeltsin era – true freedom of the media and freedom of expression.
