The cause appeared to be complications from Covid, a disease against which Zirinovsky claimed to have been vaccinated eight times. Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the State Duma, said Zirinovsky had died after a “difficult and long illness”. His death had already been reported and then denied twice this year. Six-time presidential candidate and member of the Russian parliament since 1993, Zirinovsky was known for his grotesque antics and fiery speeches from the podium where he seemed to reveal Russia’s darkest ambitions. He openly supported the dictatorship and suggested to Putin that he rule the country until his death. “I have clean hands,” he once said of his own ambitions. “But they will be covered in blood if I become president.” Strange and disrespectful, Zirinovsky was laughed at by many as a clown and a key member of Russia’s “pocket opposition” that the Kremlin has managed to maintain a democracy for decades. But sometimes Zirinovsky’s dark prophecies proved to be terribly close to the truth, such as when he almost predicted the date and time of the Russian invasion of Ukraine months before it. “At 4 in the morning of February 22 you will feel [our new policy]”, He said in one of his last appearances before the deputies last December. “I want 2022 to be peaceful. But I love the truth, I have been telling the truth for 70 years. It will not be peaceful. “It will be a year when Russia will once again be great.” On February 22, Russia recognized the independence of two territories it controlled in southeastern Ukraine. Two days later, the Kremlin began its invasion of Ukraine, beginning a new chapter in Russian history. Zirinovsky will hardly be needed in this chapter, when the symbolic supranationalist has been overtaken by dozens of Russian officials who openly call for war with the West and a return to the authoritarian policies of the Soviet Union. But he was an honest voice of ethnic nationalism in the 1990s, when, as a candidate in the country’s presidential election, he said he “dreamed that Russian soldiers would wash their feet in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean.” Born in the Soviet capital Kazakhstan in 1946, Zhirinovsky appeared on the post-Soviet political scene in 1991 with a surprise third-place finish in the presidential election. The Liberal Democratic Party of Russia won 23% of the vote in the parliamentary elections two years later. He was, as we now understand, the first “trampist” type populist, a pioneer. “But in the 1990s he seemed to be a classic far-right, close to semi-fascist views,” said Andrei Kolesnikov of the Carnegie Center in Moscow. “And in the conditions of the political controversy of that time, this was happening.” Over a period of three decades, Zirinovsky created a personal cult around him, surrounding himself with a group of young men from the LDPR and gaining a reputation as a straightforward brawler who led him to be described as “Trump of Russia.” He gained international fame for throwing a glass of orange juice at opposition politician Boris Nemtsov during a television appearance in 1995 and personally provoked and took part in punches in the Duma. He also made regular anti-Semitic and sexist remarks, such as when he suggested during a press conference that his assistants should rape a pregnant journalist. But Zhirinovsky, who came under Putin’s rule early in his term, played a key role in attracting right-wing voters who could be tempted by the real opposition if they did not have a candidate to speak to. Gennady Zyuganov, the longtime leader of the Communist Party, has played a similar role on the left. “During Putin’s years, he performed the most important function, together with Zyuganov: if Zyuganov ‘sterilized’ and kept the votes of left-wing voters in the legal field, Zirinovsky did the same with the extreme right,” Kolesnikov said. This was Zirinovsky’s main legacy for the Kremlin, which saw him as a credible spoiler in any of the country’s elections. “His identity is so great that it is difficult to imagine the history of Russia’s modern political system without him,” said Volodin, a top ally of Putin. “The best appreciation of his actions is the unwavering support of the voters.”
