Yury Skokov, the first secretary of the Russian Federation's Security Council and once a close adviser to former President Boris Yeltsin, died in Moscow on Tuesday morning at age 75.
Skokov, who in 1992-93 headed the Security Council, a national security presidential advisory body, and later lobbied for the military industrial complex, died from heart failure at his home, his aide Tatyana Yakovleva told Interfax.
A military engineer by training, Skokov was known for his role as a mediator in the conflict between Georgia and its breakaway republic of Abkhazia in 1992.
In 1995, he became a political ally of the Congress of Russian Communities party, led by Dmitry Rogozin, now a deputy prime minister.
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