Word of his death first appeared Saturday in a Facebook posting by son-in-law Yegor Shuppe.

CNN: Putin foe, exiled Russian oligarch found dead in UK home

Yet a similar mood of alarm attended the departure of Yegor Gaidar from high political office.

ECONOMIST: Is Russia going wrong? | The

But Yegor Gaidar, an architect of Mr Yeltsin's economic reforms, this week proposed an alternative: Weimar Germany.

ECONOMIST: Russian politics: Vladimir who? | The

Yegor Gaidar is described as the main architect of Russia's post-Soviet reforms.

NPR: U.K. Investigators Visit Moscow in Litvinenko Probe

The new ideas, about reforming pensions and household subsidies, betrayed the hand of Yegor Gaidar, a pioneering Russian reformer who has been quietly regaining influence.

ECONOMIST: The master of Russia returns

Some of its leading lights, like a former privatisation chief, Anatoly Chubais, and Yegor Gaidar, a free-market former prime minister, are keen supporters of Mr Putin's.

ECONOMIST: A Russian coronation | The

She was in close contact with Yegor Gaidar and the other young reformers who saved the Russian economy from total meltdown and laid the foundations, albeit shaky ones, for a market economy.

ECONOMIST: Observing Russia

Western friends of reform in Russia should be under no illusion: The rationale for such an arrangement is not that it will ultimately produce the transformation of political and economic affairs in the former Soviet Union -- only on a more gradual, less tumultuous pace than originally envisioned by Yeltsin and his first administration led by Yegor Gaidar.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Center For Security Policy