Exclusive-Yeltsin’s son-in-law quits as Putin adviser -sources

LONDON (Reuters) -Valentin Yumashev, the son-in-law of former Russian chief Boris Yeltsin who helped Vladimir Putin come to energy, has give up his function as a Kremlin adviser, two individuals aware of Yumashev’s pondering instructed Reuters.

Yumashev was an unpaid adviser with restricted affect on Putin’s decision-making, however his departure removes one of many final hyperlinks inside Putin’s administration to Yeltsin’s rule, a interval of liberal reforms and Russia’s opening up in direction of the West.

Putin ordered his armed forces to assault Ukraine on Feb. 24 in an invasion that Western governments say is an act of unjustified aggression and which Moscow calls a “particular operation” vital to guard Russian-speakers in jap Ukraine.

In March, Anatoly Chubais, one other senior Yeltsin-era determine, left his function as Kremlin particular envoy. This month, a diplomat in Russia’s mission to the United Nations resigned over the conflict.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon Yumashev’s leaving his adviser function, and didn’t reply a name to his cellular quantity. Yumashev didn’t reply to a request for remark despatched by Reuters.

Lyudmila Telen, first deputy government director of the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Centre basis, the place Yumashev is a member of the board of trustees, instructed Reuters that Yumashev had given up his Kremlin adviser function in April.

Requested why he left, she stated: “It was his initiative.”

A second particular person aware of Yumashev’s pondering, who spoke on situation of anonymity, additionally stated that Yumashev in April ceased to be a presidential adviser.

Underneath Yeltsin, who was Russian president from 1991 to 1999, Yumashev served as a Kremlin adviser and later as Kremlin chief of workers. He’s married to Yeltsin’s daughter Tatyana.

Yumashev was operating the presidential administration in 1997 when Putin, a former KGB spy who had been given a middle-ranking administrative job within the Kremlin a 12 months earlier, was promoted to be deputy Kremlin chief of workers.

That promotion offered the springboard for Putin to be anointed as Yeltsin’s inheritor obvious, and win a presidential election in 2000 after Yeltsin had stepped down.

Although Putin’s insurance policies over time have diverged from the values that Yeltsin espoused, the Russian chief has saved his ties to the previous first household.

In January 2020, in response to the Kremlin web site, Putin visited Yeltsin’s daughter Tatyana at her house to congratulate her on her birthday.

The grownup daughter of Valentin Yumashev and Tatyana, Maria, posted on her Instagram account on Feb. 24 a picture of the Ukrainian flag, together with the phrases “No to conflict,” and a broken-heart emoji.