Ex-Russian premier, Yeltsin adversary Yevgeny Primakov dies at 85.

Bloomberg News

MOSCOW -- Yevgeny Primakov, the former Russian premier, foreign minister and KGB spymaster who negotiated a cooperation pact with NATO after fighting the alliance's expansion in eastern Europe, has died. He was 85.

Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call Friday. Primakov died Friday in Moscow's central clinical hospital after a long illness, his grandson Yevgeny said by phone.

Primakov was named prime minister in September 1998, a month after Russia defaulted on $40 billion of domestic debt.

He was a compromise candidate after parliament blocked President Boris Yeltsin's first choice.

He was outspoken in defense of Russia's national interests, turning around his plane en route to the U.S. in 1999 to protest the threat of NATO airstrikes against Serbian troops.

Yeltsin fired him in May 1999, as Primakov gained popularity and backed investigations into claims the president's family took bribes.

Primakov graduated in 1953 from the Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies, a source of recruits for the KGB, the Soviet secret service.

After Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, Primakov visited Baghdad as Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's special envoy to the Middle East and met with Saddam Hussein, whom he had known since the 1960s.

Primakov, who spoke Arabic, was recognized as an expert on Middle Eastern and Central Asian affairs. He headed Russia's external intelligence service, the SVR, from 1991-96, when Aldrich Ames was unmasked in 1994 as a mole within the CIA.

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