A close associate of Boris Yeltsin, he held several high positions in the first Russian government, including Secretary of State, and was one of the drafters and signers of the Belavezha Accords on behalf of Russia.

[2] His father Eduard Kazimirovich was a military pilot, and his mother Valentina Vasilievna Belonogova was an ethnic Russian.

[1] In 1987, during the perestroika period, Burbulis organized the Sverdlovsk Podium, an open forum for discussing local and later national social, political, and economic problems.

He was one of the initiators of the Inter-regional Deputies’ Group, the first legally organized opposition in the Soviet Union, which was later credited by some with being one of the prime catalysts for democratic reform.

[1] On 12 June 1990, the Congress of People’s Deputies of the RSFSR passed a law on the sovereignty of Russia within the framework of the Soviet Union.

[5] Effectively the second leader in the Russian government after Yeltsin, Burbulis was responsible for developing the strategy and overseeing the implementation of political and economic reforms.

[1] Burbulis was one of the drafters and signers of the Belavezha Accords that effectively ended the Soviet Union and founded the Commonwealth of Independent States.