Former deputy of three parliaments, Viktor Alksnis, has passed away.

Alksnis, the grandson of the repressed Soviet military leader Yakov Alksnis, was born in the Kemerovo region, where his family was exiled. After his rehabilitation, he and his parents returned to Riga. He graduated from the Riga Higher Military Aviation Engineering School, named after his grandfather, and served in the Baltic Military District.

In 1988, he began his political career, initially advocating for the expansion of Latvia's sovereignty within the USSR and later opposing the restoration of its independence. In the autumn of 1991, he was expelled from the Supreme Council of the republic for failing to resign from the Soviet Army. During the 1990s, he was involved in pro-Soviet and right-wing organizations in Moscow and participated in the establishment of the Russian People's Union.

During the conflict between President Boris Yeltsin and the Supreme Council, he organized anti-presidential protests, during one of which he was brutally beaten by OMON. In 2000, he was elected to the State Duma, actively supporting pro-Russian separatists in the former USSR and publicly speaking in favor of Crimea's separation from Ukraine. He criticized Russian President Putin from a right-wing perspective: "Remember my words: the damage that Putin is inflicting on Russia today will far exceed the damage caused by Gorbachev and even Yeltsin."

He himself held eclectic views, opposing ethnic nationalism and communism while simultaneously receiving support from right-wing politicians and Stalinists.

As a State Duma deputy, Alksnis became involved in one of the first public scandals in Russia related to the blogosphere. He attempted to prosecute a blogger who referred to him on the social network LiveJournal as a "patented star-bearing m***k."

In response, he referred to himself as a "Category A official," a phrase that briefly became a popular internet meme. He was a trusted representative of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation presidential candidate Pavel Grudinin and supported the political ambitions of Igor Strelkov (Girkin).