Former Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin died early on Wednesday morning at the age of 73, a source in the political establishment said.
"Chernomyrdin died at 4 am Moscow time [01:00 GMT]. He had been severely ill," the source said, RIA Novosti reported.
After serving as Russian prime minister under President Boris Yeltsin from 1992-1998, Chernomyrdin was made Russian ambassador to Ukraine in 2001, a post he held until 2009, when he was designated as a presidential advisor.
Chernomyrdin was a steadfast supporter of Yeltsin and supporter of privatization and a number of other reforms, although he started his career by opposing many economic changes.
Chernomyrdin is best known in the Russian-speaking world for his use of malapropisms, such as the now popular proverb "we wanted the best, but it turned out as always," uttered after the Russian Central Bank carried out an unsuccessful monetary exchange in the early 1990s.