Yeltsin leaves mixed legacy

Former President Boris Yeltsin - who engineered the final collapse of the Soviet Union and pushed Russia to embrace democracy and a market economy - has died, a Kremlin official said today. He was 76.

Kremlin spokesman Alexander Smirnov confirmed Yeltsin's death, but gave no cause or further information. The Interfax news agency cited an unidentified medical source as saying he had died of heart failure.