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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Yeltsin Tried Suicide, Says His Ex-Bodyguard

Compiled From Wire Services

Boris Yeltsin suffers from bouts of chronic depression and tried several times to kill himself, his former bodyguard says in a newspaper report Friday. The Russian president angrily denied the claims.

Alexander Korzhakov said Yeltsin’s repeated suicide attempts stopped only after he suffered his first major heart attack in 1995, The Guardian newspaper reported.

Korzhakov, now a deputy with parliamentary immunity from prosecution, headed Yeltsin’s personal security service and guarding him for nearly 11 years. He was ousted in a Kremlin power struggle last year during the president’s re-election campaign.

“It is senseless to enter into polemics with a man blinded by grudge and moved in his attitude to the president only by the feeling of revenge,” said a statement today from Yeltsin’s press service.

Korzhakov said Yeltsin attempted suicide in 1990 by jumping off a bridge into the Moscow river, and tried again two years later by locking himself in his sauna.

Yeltsin said the first incident was an attempt on his life by the KGB, but many at the time thought it was because he was drunk, the paper said.

Yeltsin described the second incident in his book, “The View from the Kremlin,” saying laconically that he suffered from dark thoughts. The Guardian said no one at the time realized the significance of the phrase.