Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin (Russian:Бори́с Никола́евич Е́льцин,IPA:[bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈlaɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn](listen); 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician and the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999. Originally a supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin emerged under the perestroika reforms as one of Gorbachev's most powerful political opponents. During the late 1980s, Yeltsin had been a candidate member of the Politburo, and in late 1987 tendered a letter of resignation in protest. No one had resigned from the Politburo before. This act branded Yeltsin as a rebel and led to his rise in popularity as an anti-establishment figure.
On 29 May 1990, he was elected the chairman of the Russian Supreme Soviet. On 12 June 1991 he was elected by popular vote to the newly created post of President of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). Upon the resignation of Mikhail Gorbachev and the dissolution of the Soviet Union on 25 December 1991, the RSFSR became the sovereign state of the Russian Federation, and Yeltsin remained in office as president. He was reelected in the 1996 election, in which critics widely claimed pervasive corruption; in the second round he defeated Gennady Zyuganov from the revived Communist Party by a margin of 13.7%. However, Yeltsin never recovered his early popularity after a series of economic and political crises in Russia in the 1990s.
Yeltsin transformed Russia's socialist economy into a capitalist market economy, implementing economic shock therapy, market exchange rate of the ruble, nationwide privatization and lifting of price controls. Yeltsin proposed a new Russian constitution which was popularly approved at the 1993 constitutional referendum. However, due to the sudden total economic shift, a majority of the national property and wealth fell into the hands of a small number of oligarchs.[1] Rather than creating new enterprises, Yeltsin's policies led to international monopolies hijacking the former Soviet markets, arbitraging the huge difference between old domestic prices for Russian commodities and the prices prevailing on the world market.[2] In the foreign policy Yeltsin offered  cooperative and conciliatory relations, particularly  with the Group of Seven, CIS and OSCE, as well as adherence to arms control agreements, such as START II.[3]
Much of the Yeltsin era was marked by widespread corruption, and as a result of persistent low oil and commodity prices during the 1990s, Russia suffered inflation and economic collapse. Within a few years of his presidency, many of Yeltsin's initial supporters had started to criticize his leadership, and Vice President Alexander Rutskoy even denounced the reforms as "economic genocide".[4] Ongoing confrontations with the Supreme Soviet climaxed in the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis in which Yeltsin ordered the unconstitutional dissolution of the Supreme Soviet parliament, which as a result attempted to remove him from office. In October 1993, troops loyal to Yeltsin stopped an armed uprising outside of the parliament building, leading to a number of deaths.[5] Boris Yeltsin visited Poland in 1993 and apologized to Poles for the Katyn massacre that was Stalin's war crime dated 1940.[6] On 31 December 1999, under enormous internal pressure, Yeltsin announced his resignation, leaving the presidency in the hands of his chosen successor, then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Yeltsin left office widely unpopular with the Russian population.[7]
Yeltsin kept a low profile after his resignation, though he did occasionally publicly criticise his successor. Yeltsin died of congestive heart failure on 23 April 2007.
Early life and education

This article is part of
a series aboutBoris Yeltsin
Early life
Presidency
Yeltsinism

CPSU membership (1961–1990)
26th Politburo
27th Politburo
26th Central Committee
27th Central Committee
28th Congress of the CPSU

Elections
1991
campaign
1996
campaign
Loans for shares scheme
Semibankirschina
Soskovets campaign strategy
Xerox Affair

First term
1st inauguration
Cabinet
August Coup
Constituent Assembly of Russia
1993 crisis
1st Chechen War
International trips

Second term
2nd inauguration
Ruble crisis
2nd Chechen War
Resignation
International trips

Post-Presidency
Presidential Center
Presidential Library
Illness
Death and state funeral

Media galleryvt
Boris Yeltsin was born in the village of Butka, Talitsky District, Sverdlovsk, USSR, on 1 February 1931.[8] In 1932, after the state took away the entire harvest from the recently collectivised Butka peasants, the Yeltsin family moved as far away as they could, to Kazan, more than 1,100 kilometres from Butka, where Boris' father, Nikolai, found work on a building site. Growing up in rural Sverdlovsk, he studied at the Ural State Technical University (now Urals Polytechnic Institute), and began his career in the construction industry.[9] In 1934, Nikolai Yeltsin was convicted of anti-Soviet agitation and sentenced to hard labour in a gulag for three years.[10]
Following his release in 1936 after serving two years, Nikolai took his family to live in Berezniki in Perm Krai, where his brother Ivan, a blacksmith, had been exiled the previous year for failing to deliver his grain quota.[11] Nikolai remained unemployed for a period of time and then worked again in construction. His mother, Klavdiya Vasilyevna Yeltsina, worked as a seamstress. Boris studied at Pushkin High School in Berezniki. He was fond of sports (in particular skiing, gymnastics, volleyball, track & field, boxing and wrestling) despite losing the thumb and index finger of his left hand when he and some friends furtively entered a Red Army supply depot, stole several grenades, and tried to disassemble them.[12]
In 1949, he was admitted to the Ural Polytechnic Institute in Sverdlovsk, majoring in construction, and he graduated in 1955. The subject of his degree paper was "Construction of a Mine Shaft".[13] From 1955-57 he worked as a foreman with the building trust Uraltyazhtrubstroy. From 1957-63, he worked in Sverdlovsk, and was promoted from construction site superintendent to chief of the Construction Directorate with the Yuzhgorstroy Trust. In 1963, he became chief engineer, and in 1965, head of the Sverdlovsk House-Building Combine, responsible for sewerage and technical plumbing. He joined the ranks of the CPSU nomenklatura in 1968 when he was appointed head of construction with the Sverdlovsk Regional Party Committee. In 1975, he became secretary of the regional committee in charge of the region's industrial development. In 1976, the Politburo of the CPSU promoted him to the post of the First Secretary of the CPSU Committee of Sverdlovsk Oblast (effectively he became the head of one of the most important industrial regions in the USSR); he remained in this position until 1985.
Communist Party membership
Yeltsin was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) from 17 March 1961[14] to 13 July 1990,[15] and a nomenklatura member from 1968.
In 1977, as a party official in Sverdlovsk, Yeltsin was ordered by Moscow to destroy the Ipatiev House where the last Russian tsar and his family had been killed by Bolshevik troops. The Ipatiev House was demolished in one night on 27 July 1977.[16] Also during Yeltsin's time in Sverdlovsk, a CPSU palace was built which was named "White Tooth" by the residents.[17] During this time, Yeltsin developed connections with key people in the Soviet power structure. In January 1981 Yeltsin was awarded the Order of Lenin, the Soviet Union's highest medal, for "the service to the Communist Party and the Soviet State and in connection with the 50th birthday".[8] In March 1981 Yeltsin was elected as a full member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.[8]
Moscow
On 11 March 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev was elected General Secretary of the CPSU by the Politburo after the death of Konstantin Chernenko. Gorbachev's primary goal was to revive the Soviet economy; however, he came to believe that fixing the Soviet economy would be nearly impossible without reforming the political and social structure of the USSR.[18] To begin implementation of these reforms, he immediately began gathering a younger and more energetic governing team of Communist Party members in Moscow. On 4 April 1985, Yeltsin received a call from Gorbachev's leading protege Yegor Ligachev summoning him to Moscow to take up position as Head of the Construction Department of the Party's Central Committee.[19] Less than three months later, he was promoted to be Secretary for Construction of the Central Committee, a position within the powerful CPSU Central Committee Secretariat.[8]
On 23 December 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev appointed Yeltsin as First Secretary of the CPSU Moscow City Committee, effectively "Mayor" of the Soviet capital, and as a result, on 18 February 1986, Yeltsin was invited to become a Candidate (non-voting) Member of the Politburo. As a politburo member, Yeltsin was also given a country house (dacha) which was previously occupied by Gorbachev, who now moved to a much bigger and more luxurious purpose-built dacha nearby. During this period, Yeltsin portrayed himself as a reformer and a populist (for example, he took a trolleybus to work), firing and reshuffling his staff several times. He became popular among Moscow residents for firing corrupt Moscow party officials.
Resignation
On 10 September 1987, after a lecture from hard-liner Yegor Ligachev at the Politburo for allowing two small unsanctioned demonstrations on Moscow streets, Yeltsin wrote a letter of resignation to Gorbachev who was holidaying on the Black Sea.[20] When Gorbachev received the letter he was stunned – nobody in Soviet history had voluntarily resigned from the ranks of the Politburo. Gorbachev phoned Yeltsin and asked him to reconsider.
On 27 October 1987 at the plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Yeltsin, frustrated that Gorbachev had not addressed any of the issues outlined in his resignation letter asked to speak. He expressed his discontent with both the slow pace of reform in society, the servility shown to the general secretary, and opposition to him from Ligachev making his position untenable, before requesting to resign from the Politburo, adding that the City Committee would decide whether he should resign from the post of First Secretary of the Moscow Communist Party.[20] Aside from the fact that no one had ever before quit the Politburo, no one in the party had ever addressed a leader of the party in such a manner in front of the Central Committee since Leon Trotsky in the 1920s.[20] In his reply, Gorbachev accused Yeltsin of "political immaturity" and "absolute irresponsibility". Nobody in the Central Committee backed Yeltsin.[21]

Within days, news of Yeltsin's actions leaked and rumours of his "secret speech" at the Central Committee spread throughout Moscow. Soon fabricated samizdat versions began to circulate – this was the beginning of Yeltsin's rise as a rebel and growth in popularity as an anti-establishment figure.[22] Gorbachev called a meeting of the Moscow City Party Committee for 11 November 1987 to launch another crushing attack on Yeltsin and confirm his dismissal. On 9 November 1987, Yeltsin apparently tried to kill himself and was rushed to hospital bleeding profusely from self-inflicted cuts to his chest. Gorbachev ordered the injured Yeltsin from his hospital bed to the Moscow party plenum two days later where he was ritually denounced by the party faithful in what was reminiscent of a Stalinist show trial before he was fired from the post of First Secretary of the Moscow Communist Party. Yeltsin said he would never forgive Gorbachev for this "immoral and inhuman" treatment.[20]
Yeltsin was demoted to the position of First Deputy Commissioner for the State Committee for Construction. At the next meeting of the Central Committee on 24 February 1988, Yeltsin was removed from his position as a Candidate member of the Politburo. He was perturbed and humiliated but began plotting his revenge.[23] His opportunity came with Gorbachev's establishment of the Congress of People's Deputies.[24] He recovered, and started intensively criticizing Gorbachev, highlighting the slow pace of reform in the Soviet Union as his major argument.
Yeltsin's criticism of the Politburo and Gorbachev led to a smear campaign against him, in which examples of Yeltsin's awkward behavior were used against him. Speaking at the CPSU conference in 1988, Yegor Ligachev stated: "Boris, you are wrong". An article in Pravda described Yeltsin as drunk at a lecture during his September 1989[25] visit to the United States, an allegation which appeared to be confirmed by a TV account of his speech. However, popular dissatisfaction with the regime was very strong, and these attempts to smear Yeltsin only added to his popularity. In another incident, Yeltsin fell from a bridge. Commenting on this event, Yeltsin hinted that he was helped to fall from the bridge by the enemies of perestroika, but his opponents suggested that he was simply drunk.[26]
On 26 March 1989, Yeltsin was elected to the Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union as the delegate from Moscow district with a decisive 92% of the vote[8] and on 29 May 1989, was elected by the Congress of People's Deputies to a seat on the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. On 19 July 1989, Yeltsin announced the formation of the radical pro-reform faction in the Congress of People's Deputies: the Inter-Regional Group of Deputies, and on 29 July 1989 was elected one of the five co-Chairman of the Inter-Regional Group.[8]
On 16 September 1989, Yeltsin toured a medium-sized grocery store (Randall's) in Texas.[27] Leon Aron, quoting a Yeltsin associate, wrote in his 2000 biography, Yeltsin, A Revolutionary Life (St. Martin's Press): "For a long time, on the plane to Miami, he sat motionless, his head in his hands. 'What have they done to our poor people?' he said after a long silence." He added, "On his return to Moscow, Yeltsin would confess the pain he had felt after the Houston excursion: the ‘pain for all of us, for our country so rich, so talented and so exhausted by incessant experiments.’”
He wrote that Mr. Yeltsin added, “I think we have committed a crime against our people by making their standard of living so incomparably lower than that of the Americans.” An aide, Lev Sukhanov was reported to have said that it was at that moment that “the last vestige of Bolshevism collapsed” inside his boss.[28]
On his autobiography titled Against The Grain: An Autobiography written and published in 1990, however, Yeltsin hinted in a small passage that after his tour, he made plans on opening his own line of grocery stores and planned to fill it with government subsidized goods in order to alleviate the countries problems.
President of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic

On 4 March 1990, Yeltsin was elected to the Congress of People's Deputies of Russia representing Sverdlovsk with 72% of the vote.[29] On 29 May 1990, he was elected chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), in spite of the fact that Gorbachev personally pleaded with the Russian deputies not to select Yeltsin.[30] He was supported by both democratic and conservative members of the Supreme Soviet, which sought power in the developing political situation in the country.
A part of this power struggle was the opposition between power structures of the Soviet Union and the RSFSR. In an attempt to gain more power, on 12 June 1990, the Congress of People's Deputies of the RSFSR adopted a declaration of sovereignty. On 12 July 1990, Yeltsin resigned from the CPSU in a dramatic speech before party members at the 28th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, some of whom responded by shouting "Shame!"[31]

1991 presidential election

On 12 June 1991, Yeltsin won 57% of the popular vote in the democratic presidential elections for the Russian republic, defeating Gorbachev's preferred candidate, Nikolai Ryzhkov, who got just 16% of the vote, and four other candidates. In his election campaign, Yeltsin criticized the "dictatorship of the center", but did not suggest the introduction of a market economy. Instead, he said that he would put his head on the railtrack in the event of increased prices. Yeltsin took office on 10 July, and reappointed Ivan Silayev as Chairman of the Council of Ministers – Government of the Russian SFSR.
On 18 August 1991, a coup against Gorbachev was launched by the government members opposed to perestroika. Gorbachev was held in Crimea while Yeltsin raced to the White House of Russia (residence of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR) in Moscow to defy the coup, making a memorable speech from atop the turret of a tank onto which he had climbed. The White House was surrounded by the military but the troops defected in the face of mass popular demonstrations. By 21 August most of the coup leaders had fled Moscow and Gorbachev was "rescued" from Crimea and then returned to Moscow. Yeltsin was subsequently hailed by his supporters around the world for rallying mass opposition to the coup.

Although restored to his position, Gorbachev had been destroyed politically. Neither union nor Russian power structures heeded his commands as support had swung over to Yeltsin.  Taking advantage of the situation, Yeltsin began taking what remained of the Soviet government, ministry by ministry—including the Kremlin. On 6 November 1991, Yeltsin issued a decree banning all Communist Party activities on Russian soil. In early December 1991, Ukraine voted for independence from the Soviet Union. A week later, on 8 December, Yeltsin met Ukrainian president Leonid Kravchuk and the leader of Belarus, Stanislav Shushkevich, in Belovezhskaya Pushcha. In the Belavezha Accords, the three presidents announced the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the formation of a voluntary Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in its place.[32]

According to Gorbachev, Yeltsin kept the plans of the Belovezhskaya meeting in strict secrecy and the main goal of the dissolution of the Soviet Union was to get rid of Gorbachev, who by that time had started to recover his position after the events of August. Gorbachev has also accused Yeltsin of violating the people's will expressed in the referendum in which the majority voted to keep the Soviet Union united. On 12 December, the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR ratified the Belavezha Accords and denounced the 1922 Union Treaty. It also ordered the Russian deputies in the Council of the Union to cease their work, leaving that body without a quorum. In effect, the largest republic of the Soviet Union had seceded.
On 17 December, in a meeting with Yeltsin, Gorbachev accepted the fait accompli and agreed to dissolve the Soviet Union. On 24 December, the Russian Federation, by mutual agreement of the other CIS states (which by this time included all of the remaining republics except Georgia) took the Soviet Union's seat in the United Nations. The next day, Gorbachev resigned and the Soviet Union ceased to exist—thereby ending the world's oldest, largest and most powerful Communist state. Economic relations between the former Soviet republics were severely compromised. Millions of ethnic Russians found themselves in the newly formed foreign countries.[33]
President of the Russian Federation

Yeltsin's first term

Radical reforms
Just days after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Boris Yeltsin resolved to embark on a programme of radical economic reform. Unlike Gorbachev's reforms, which sought to expand democracy in the socialist system, the new regime aimed to completely dismantle socialism and fully implement capitalism; converting the world's largest command economy into a free-market one. During early discussions of this transition, Yeltsin's advisers debated issues of speed and sequencing, with an apparent division between those favouring a rapid approach and those favoring a gradual or slower approach.

On 2 January 1992, Yeltsin, acting as his own Prime Minister, ordered the liberalisation of foreign trade, prices, and currency. At the same time, Yeltsin followed a policy of "macroeconomic stabilisation", a harsh austerity regime designed to control inflation. Under Yeltsin's stabilisation programme, interest rates were raised to extremely high levels to tighten money and restrict credit. To bring state spending and revenues into balance, Yeltsin raised new taxes heavily, cut back sharply on government subsidies to industry and construction, and made steep cuts to state welfare spending.
In early 1992, prices skyrocketed throughout Russia, and a deep credit crunch shut down many industries and brought about a protracted depression. The reforms devastated the living standards of much of the population, especially the groups dependent on Soviet-era state subsidies and welfare entitlement programmes.[34] Through the 1990s, Russia's GDP fell by 50%, vast sectors of the economy were wiped out, inequality and unemployment grew dramatically, whilst incomes fell. Hyperinflation, caused by the Central Bank of Russia's loose monetary policy, wiped out many people's personal savings, and tens of millions of Russians were plunged into poverty.[35][36]

Some economists argue that in the 1990s, Russia suffered an economic downturn more severe than the United States or Germany had undergone six decades earlier in the Great Depression.[34] Russian commentators and even some Western economists, such as Marshall Goldman, widely blamed Yeltsin's economic programme for the country's disastrous economic performance in the 1990s. Many politicians began to quickly distance themselves from the programme. In February 1992, Russia's vice president, Alexander Rutskoy denounced the Yeltsin programme as "economic genocide."[37] By 1993, conflict over the reform direction escalated between Yeltsin on the one side, and the opposition to radical economic reform in Russia's parliament on the other.
Confrontation with parliament

Also throughout 1992, Yeltsin wrestled with the Supreme Soviet of Russia and the Congress of People's Deputies for control over government, government policy, government banking and property. In the course of 1992, the speaker of the Russian Supreme Soviet, Ruslan Khasbulatov, came out in opposition to the reforms, despite claiming to support Yeltsin's overall goals. In December 1992, the 7th Congress of People's Deputies succeeded in turning down the Yeltsin-backed candidacy of Yegor Gaidar for the position of Russian Prime Minister. An agreement was brokered by Valery Zorkin, chairman of the Constitutional Court, which included the following provisions: a national referendum on the new constitution; parliament and Yeltsin would choose a new head of government, to be confirmed by the Supreme Soviet; and the parliament was to cease making constitutional amendments that change the balance of power between the legislative and executive branches. Eventually, on 14 December, Viktor Chernomyrdin, widely seen as a compromise figure, was confirmed in the office.
The conflict escalated soon, however, with the parliament changing its prior decision to hold a referendum. Yeltsin, in turn, announced in a televised address to the nation on 20 March 1993, that he was going to assume certain "special powers" in order to implement his programme of reforms. In response, the hastily called 9th Congress of People's Deputies attempted to remove Yeltsin from presidency through impeachment on 26 March 1993. Yeltsin's opponents gathered more than 600 votes for impeachment, but fell 72 votes short of the required two-thirds majority.[38]

During the summer of 1993, a situation of dual power developed in Russia. Since July, two separate administrations of the Chelyabinsk Oblast functioned side by side, after Yeltsin refused to accept the newly elected pro-parliament head of the region. The Supreme Soviet pursued its own foreign policies, passing a declaration on the status of Sevastopol. In August, a commentator reflected on the situation as follows: "The President issues decrees as if there were no Supreme Soviet, and the Supreme Soviet suspends decrees as if there were no President." (Izvestiya, 13 August 1993).[39]
On 21 September 1993, Yeltsin, in breach of the constitution; announced in a televised address his decision to disband the Supreme Soviet and Congress of People's Deputies by decree. In his address, Yeltsin declared his intent to rule by decree until the election of the new parliament and a referendum on a new constitution, triggering the constitutional crisis of October 1993. On the night after Yeltsin's televised address, the Supreme Soviet declared Yeltsin removed from presidency, by virtue of him having breached the constitution, and Vice-President Alexander Rutskoy was sworn in as acting president.[38]
Between 21 and 24 September, Yeltsin was confronted by popular unrest. The demonstrators were protesting the new and terrible living conditions under Yeltsin. Since 1989, GDP had declined by half. Corruption was rampant, violent crime was skyrocketing, medical services were collapsing, food and fuel were increasingly scarce and life expectancy was falling for all but a tiny handful of the population; moreover, Yeltsin was increasingly getting the blame. By early-October, Yeltsin had secured the support of Russia's army and ministry of interior forces. In a massive show of force, Yeltsin called up tanks to shell the Russian White House, Russian parliament building.[38]
As the Supreme Soviet was dissolved, elections to the newly established parliament, the State Duma, were held in December 1993. Candidates associated with Yeltsin's economic policies were overwhelmed by a huge anti-Yeltsin vote, the bulk of which was divided between the Communist Party and ultra-nationalists. The referendum, however, held at the same time, approved the new constitution, which significantly expanded the powers of the president, giving Yeltsin a right to appoint the members of the government, to dismiss the Prime Minister and, in some cases, to dissolve the Duma.[40]
Chechnya

In December 1994, Yeltsin ordered the military invasion of Chechnya in an attempt to restore Moscow's control over the republic. Nearly two years later, Yeltsin withdrew federal forces from the devastated Chechnya under a 1996 peace agreement brokered by Alexander Lebed; Yeltsin's then-security chief. The peace deal allowed Chechnya greater autonomy but not full independence. The decision to launch the war in Chechnya dismayed many in the West. TIME magazine wrote:
Then, what was to be made of Boris Yeltsin? Clearly he could no longer be regarded as the democratic hero of Western myth. But had he become an old-style communist boss, turning his back on the democratic reformers he once championed and throwing in his lot with militarists and ultranationalists? Or was he a befuddled, out-of-touch chief being manipulated, knowingly or unwittingly, by—well, by whom exactly? If there was to be a dictatorial coup, would Yeltsin be its victim or its leader?"[41]

Privatization and the rise of "the oligarchs"

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Yeltsin promoted privatisation as a way of spreading ownership of shares in former state enterprises as widely as possible to create political support for his economic reforms. In the West, privatisation was viewed as the key to the transition from Communism in Eastern Europe, ensuring a quick dismantling of the Soviet-era command economy to make way for "free market reforms". In the early-1990s, Anatoly Chubais, Yeltsin's deputy for economic policy, emerged as a leading advocate of privatisation in Russia.
In late 1992, Yeltsin launched a programme of free vouchers as a way to give mass privatisation a jump-start. Under the programme, all Russian citizens were issued vouchers, each with a nominal value of around 10,000 roubles, for the purchase of shares of select state enterprises. Although each citizen initially received a voucher of equal face value, within months the majority of them converged in the hands of intermediaries who were ready to buy them for cash right away.[42]
In 1995, as Yeltsin struggled to finance Russia's growing foreign debt and gain support from the Russian business elite for his bid in the 1996 presidential elections, the Russian president prepared for a new wave of privatisation offering stock shares in some of Russia's most valuable state enterprises in exchange for bank loans. The programme was promoted as a way of simultaneously speeding up privatisation and ensuring the government a cash infusion to cover its operating needs.'[33]
However, the deals were effectively giveaways of valuable state assets to a small group of tycoons in finance, industry, energy, telecommunications, and the media who came to be known as "oligarchs" in the mid-1990s. This was due to the fact that ordinary people sold their vouchers for cash. The vouchers were bought out by a small group of investors. By mid-1996, substantial ownership shares over major firms were acquired at very low prices by a handful of people. Boris Berezovsky, who controlled major stakes in several banks and the national media, emerged as one of Yeltsin's most prominent supporters. Along with Berezovsky, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Vladimir Potanin, Vladimir Bogdanov, Rem Viakhirev, Vagit Alekperov, Alexander Smolensky, Victor Vekselberg, Mikhail Fridman and a few years later Roman Abramovich, were habitually mentioned in the media as Russia's oligarchs.[43]
Korean Air Lines Flight 007

On 5 December 1991, Senator Jesse Helms, ranking member of the Minority on the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, wrote to Yeltsin concerning U.S. servicemen who were POWs or MIAs. "The status of thousands and thousands of American servicemen who are held by Soviet and other Communist forces, and who were never repatriated after every major war this century, is of grave concern to the American people."[44]
Yeltsin would ultimately respond with a statement made on 15 June 1992, whilst being interviewed onboard his presidential jet en route to the United States, "Our archives have shown that it is true— some of them were transferred to the territory of the USSR and were kept in labour camps... We can only surmise that some of them may still be alive."[44] On 10 December 1991, just five days after Senator Helms had written to Yeltsin regarding American servicemen, he again wrote to Yeltsin, this time concerning Korean Air Lines Flight 007 (KAL 007) requesting information concerning possible survivors, including Georgia Congressman Larry McDonald, and their whereabouts.
One of the greatest tragedies of the Cold War was the shoot-down of the Korean Airlines Flight 007 by the Armed Forces of what was then the Soviet Union on 1 September 1983... The KAL-007 tragedy was one of the most tense incidences of the entire Cold War. However, now that relations between our two nations have improved substantially, I believe that it is time to resolve the mysteries surrounding this event. Clearing the air on this issue could help further to improve relations.
— Sen. Jesse Helms, writing to Yeltsin, 10 December 1991.
In March 1992, Yeltsin would hand over KAL 007's black box without its tapes to South Korean President Roh Tae-Woo at the end of the plenary session of the Korean National Assembly with this statement, "We apologise for the tragedy and are trying to settle some unsolved issues." Yeltsin released the tapes of the KAL 007's "Black Box" (its Digital Flight Data Recorder and Cockpit Voice Recorder) to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) on 8 January 1993.[45] For years the Soviet authorities had denied possessing these tapes. The openness of Yeltsin about POW/MIA and KAL 007 matters may also have signalled his willingness for more openness to the West. In 1992, which he labelled the "window of opportunity", he was willing to discuss biological weapons with the United States and admitted that the Sverdlovsk anthrax leak of 2 April 1979 (which Yeltsin had originally been involved in concealing) had been caused as the result of a mishap at a military facility.[46][47] The Russian government had maintained that the cause was contaminated meat. The true number of victims in the anthrax outbreak at Sverdlovsk, about 850 miles (1,368km) east of Moscow, is unknown.
1996 presidential election

In February 1996, Yeltsin announced that he would seek a second term at the 1996 Russian presidential election in the summer. The announcement followed weeks of speculation that Yeltsin was at the end of his political career because of his health problems and growing unpopularity in Russia. At the time, Yeltsin was recuperating from a series of heart attacks. Domestic and international observers also noted his occasionally erratic behaviour. When campaigning began in early 1996, Yeltsin's popularity was close to being non-existent.[48] Meanwhile, the opposition Communist Party had already gained ground in parliamentary voting on 17 December 1995, and its candidate, Gennady Zyuganov, had a strong grassroots organisation, especially in the rural areas and small towns, and appealed effectively to memories of the old days of Soviet prestige on the international stage and the domestic order under state socialism.[49]
Panic struck the Yeltsin team when opinion polls suggested that the ailing president could not win; some members of his entourage urged him to cancel the presidential elections and effectively rule as a dictator from then on.[50] Instead, Yeltsin changed his campaign team, assigning a key role to his daughter, Tatyana Dyachenko, and appointing Chubais as campaign manager. Chubais, acting as both Yeltsin's campaign manager and adviser on Russia's privatisation programme, used his control of the privatisation programme as an instrument of Yeltsin's re-election campaign.
In mid-1996, Chubais and Yeltsin recruited a team of a handful of financial and media oligarchs to bankroll the Yeltsin campaign and guaranteed favourable media coverage to the president on national television and in leading newspapers.[51] In return, Chubais allowed well-connected Russian business leaders to acquire majority stakes in some of Russia's most valuable state-owned assets.[52] Led by the efforts of Mikhail Lesin, the media painted a picture of a fateful choice for Russia, between Yeltsin and a "return to totalitarianism." The oligarchs even played up the threat of civil war if a Communist was elected president.[53]
Yeltsin campaigned energetically, dispelling concerns about his health, and maintained a high media profile. To boost his popularity, Yeltsin promised to abandon some of his more unpopular economic reforms, boost welfare spending, end the war in Chechnya, and pay wage and pension arrears. Yeltsin had benefited from the approval of a US$10.2 billion International Monetary Fund loan to Russia[54] which helped to keep his government afloat.[55][56] It was argued that Yeltsin also won thanks to the extensive assistance provided by the team of media and PR experts from the United States.[57][58] The Guardian reported that Joe Shumate, George Gorton, Richard Dresner, a close associate of Dick Morris, "and Steven Moore (who came on later as a PR specialist) gave an exclusive interview to Time magazine in 1996 about their adventures working as political consultants in Russia. They also detailed the extent of their collaboration with the Clinton White House."[59]

Zyuganov, who lacked Yeltsin's resources and financial backing, saw his strong initial lead whittled away. After the first round on 16 June, Yeltsin appointed a highly popular candidate Alexander Lebed, who finished in third place in the first round, Secretary of the Security Council of Russia, sacked at the latter's behest defence minister Pavel Grachev and on 20 June sacked a number of his siloviki, one of them being his chief of presidential security Alexander Korzhakov, viewed by many as Yeltsin's éminence grise. In the run-off on 3 July, with a turnout of 68.9%, Yeltsin won 53.8% of the vote and Zyuganov 40.3%, with the rest (5.9%) voting "against all".[60]
Yeltsin's second term

Yeltsin underwent emergency quintuple heart bypass surgery in November 1996, and remained in the hospital for months. During his presidency, Russia received US$40,000,000,000 in funds from the International Monetary Fund and other international lending organisations. However, his opponents allege that most of these funds were stolen by people from Yeltsin's circle and placed into foreign banks.[61][62][63]
In 1998, a political and economic crisis emerged when Yeltsin's government defaulted on its debts, causing financial markets to panic and the rouble to collapse in the 1998 Russian financial crisis. During the 1999 Kosovo war, Yeltsin strongly opposed the NATO military campaign against Yugoslavia, and warned of possible Russian intervention if NATO deployed ground troops to Kosovo. In televised comments he stated: "I told NATO, the Americans, the Germans: Don't push us towards military action. Otherwise there will be a European war for sure and possibly a world war."[64][65]
On 9 August 1999, Yeltsin fired his Prime Minister, Sergei Stepashin, and for the fourth time, fired his entire Cabinet. In Stepashin's place, he appointed Vladimir Putin, relatively unknown at that time, and announced his wish to see Putin as his successor. In late 1999, Yeltsin and U.S. President Bill Clinton openly disagreed on the war in Chechnya. At the November meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Clinton pointed his finger at Yeltsin and demanded he halt bombing attacks that had resulted in many civilian casualties. Yeltsin immediately left the conference.[66]

In December, whilst visiting China to seek support on Chechnya, Yeltsin replied to Clinton's criticism of a Russian ultimatum to citizens of Grozny. He bluntly pronounced: "Yesterday, Clinton permitted himself to put pressure on Russia. It seems he has for a minute, for a second, for half a minute, forgotten that Russia has a full arsenal of nuclear weapons. He has forgotten about that." Clinton dismissed Yeltsin's comments stating: "I didn't think he'd forgotten that America was a great power when he disagreed with what I did in Kosovo." It fell to Putin to downplay Yeltsin's comments and present reassurances about U.S. and Russian relations.[67]
Attempted 1999 impeachment
On 15 May 1999, Yeltsin survived another attempt of impeachment, this time by the democratic and communist opposition in the State Duma. He was charged with several unconstitutional activities, including the signing of the Belavezha Accords dissolving the Soviet Union in December 1991, the coup-d'état in October 1993, and initiating the war in Chechnya in 1994. None of these charges received the two-thirds majority of the Duma which was required to initiate the process of impeachment of the president.
Mabetex corruption
With Pavel Borodin as the Kremlin property manager, Swiss construction firm Mabetex was awarded many important Russian government contracts. They were awarded the contracts to reconstruct, renovate and refurbish the former Russian Federation Parliament, the Russian Opera House, State Duma and the Moscow Kremlin.

In 1998, Prosecutor General of Russia Yuri Skuratov opened a bribery investigation against Mabetex, accusing Mabetex CEO Mr. Pacolli of bribing President Boris Yeltsin and his family members. Swiss authorities issued an international arrest warrant for Pavel Borodin, the official who managed the Kremlin's property empire.[68]  Admitting publicly that bribery was usual business practice in Russia, Mr. Pacolli confirmed in early-December 1999 that he had guaranteed five credit cards for Mr. Yeltsin's wife, Naina, and two daughters, Tatyana and Yelena.[68] President Yeltsin resigned a few weeks later on 31 December 1999, appointing Vladimir Putin as his successor. President Putin's first decree as president was lifelong immunity from prosecution for Mr. Yeltsin.[69]
Resignation
On 31 December 1999, in an announcement aired at 12:00pm MSK on Russian television and taped in the morning of the same day, Yeltsin said he had resigned and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin had taken over as acting president, with elections due to take place on 26 March 2000. Yeltsin asked for forgiveness for what he acknowledged were errors of his rule, and said Russia needed to enter the new century with new political leaders. Yeltsin said:
I want to ask for your forgiveness, that many of our dreams didn't come true. That what seemed to us to be simple turned out painfully difficult. I ask forgiveness for the fact that I didn't justify some of the hopes of those people who believed that with one stroke, one burst, one sign we could jump from the grey, stagnant, totalitarian past to a bright, rich, civilized future. I myself believed this. One burst was not enough... but I want you to know – I've never said this, today it's important for me to tell you: the pain of every one of you, I felt in myself, in my heart... in saying farewell, I want to say to every one of you: be happy. You deserve happiness. You deserve happiness, and peace.[70]
By some estimates, his approval ratings when leaving office were as low as 2%.[71]
Electoral history

Illness

Yeltsin suffered from heart disease during his first term as President of the Russian Federation, probably continuing for the rest of his life. He is known to have suffered heart problems in March 1990, just after being elected as a member of parliament.[72] It was common knowledge that in early 1996 he was recuperating from a series of heart attacks and, soon after, he spent months in hospital recovering from a quintuple bypass operation (see above). His death in 2007 was recorded as due to congestive heart failure.

According to numerous reports, Yeltsin was alcohol dependent. The subject made headlines abroad during Yeltsin's visit to the U.S. in 1989 for a series of lectures on social and political life in the Soviet Union. A report in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, reprinted by Pravda, reported that Yeltsin often appeared drunk in public. His alleged alcoholism was also the subject of media discussion following his meeting with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott following Clinton's inauguration in 1993 and an incident during a flight stop-over at Shannon Airport, Ireland, in September 1994 when the waiting Irish prime minister Albert Reynolds was told that Yeltsin was unwell and would not be leaving the aircraft. Reynolds tried to make excuses for him in an effort to offset his own humiliation in vainly waiting outside the plane to meet him. Speaking to the media in March 2010, Yeltsin's daughter Tatyana Yumasheva claimed that her father had suffered a heart attack on the flight from the United States to Moscow and was therefore not in a position to leave the plane.[73]
According to former Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Boris Nemtsov, the bizarre behavior of Yeltsin resulted from "strong drugs" given to him by Kremlin doctors, which were incompatible even with a small amount of alcohol. This was discussed by journalist Yelena Tregubova from the "Kremlin pool" in connection with an episode during Yeltsin's visit to Stockholm in 1997 when Yeltsin suddenly started talking nonsense (he allegedly told his bemused audience that Swedish meatballs reminded him of Björn Borg's face),[74][75] lost his balance, and almost fell down on the podium after drinking a single glass of champagne.[76] Tregubova barely escaped an assassination attempt after publishing this material.[77]
Yeltsin, in his memoirs, claimed no recollection of the event but did make a passing reference to the incident when he met Borg a year later at the World Circle Kabaddi Cup in Hamilton, Ontario, where the pair had been invited to present the trophy.[78] He made a hasty withdrawal from the funeral of King Hussein of Jordan in February 1999.[76]
After Yeltsin's death, a Dutch neurosurgeon, Michiel Staal, said that his team had been secretly flown to Moscow to operate on Yeltsin in 1999. Yeltsin suffered from an unspecified neurological disorder that affected his sense of balance, causing him to wobble as if in a drunken state; the goal of the operation was to reduce the pain .[76]
According to author and historian Taylor Branch's interviews with Bill Clinton, on a 1995 visit to Washington D.C., Yeltsin was found on Pennsylvania Avenue, drunk, in his underwear and trying to hail a taxi cab in order to find pizza.[79]
Yeltsin's personal and health problems received a great deal of attention in the global press. As the years went on, he was often viewed as an increasingly drunk and unstable leader, rather than the inspiring figure he was once seen as. The possibility that he might die in office was often discussed. Starting in the last years of his presidential term, Yeltsin's primary residence was the Gorki-9 presidential dacha west of Moscow. He made frequent stays at the nearby government sanatorium in Barvikha.[76]
In October 1999 Yeltsin was hospitalized with flu and a fever, and in the following month he was hospitalized with pneumonia, just days after receiving treatment for bronchitis.[80]
Life after resignation

Yeltsin maintained a low profile after his resignation, making almost no public statements or appearances. He criticized his successor in December 2000 for supporting the reintroduction of the Soviet-era national anthem.[81] In January 2001 he was hospitalized for six weeks with pneumonia resulting from a viral infection.[82] On 13 September 2004, following the Beslan school hostage crisis and nearly concurrent terrorist attacks in Moscow, Putin launched an initiative to replace the election of regional governors with a system whereby they would be directly appointed by the president and approved by regional legislatures. Yeltsin, together with Mikhail Gorbachev, publicly criticized Putin's plan as a step away from democracy in Russia and a return to the centrally-run political apparatus of the Soviet era.[83]
In September 2005, Yeltsin underwent a hip operation in Moscow after breaking his femur in a fall while on holiday in the Italian island of Sardinia.[84] On 1 February 2006, Yeltsin celebrated his 75th birthday.
Death and funeral

Boris Yeltsin died of congestive heart failure[85][86] on 23 April 2007, aged 76.[87][88] According to experts quoted by Komsomolskaya Pravda, the onset of Yeltsin's condition was due to his visit to Jordan between 25 March and 2 April.[85] He was buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery on 25 April 2007,[89] following a period during which his body had lain in repose in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow.[90]
Yeltsin was the first Russian head of state in 113 years to be buried in a church ceremony, after Emperor Alexander III.[91] He was survived by his wife, Naina Iosifovna Yeltsina, whom he married in 1956, and their two daughters Yelena and Tatyana, born in 1957 and 1959, respectively.[38]
President Putin declared the day of his funeral a national day of mourning, with the nation's flags flown at half mast and all entertainment programs suspended for the day.[92] Putin said, upon declaring 25 April 2007 a day of national mourning, that:

[Yeltsin's] presidency has inscribed him forever in Russian and in world history. ... A new democratic Russia was born during his time: a free, open and peaceful country. A state in which the power truly does belong to the people. ... the first President of Russia’s strength consisted in the mass support of Russian citizens for his ideas and aspirations. Thanks to the will and direct initiative of President Boris Yeltsin a new constitution, one which declared human rights a supreme value, was adopted. It gave people the opportunity to freely express their thoughts, to freely choose power in Russia, to realise their creative and entrepreneurial plans. This Constitution permitted us to begin building a truly effective Federation. ... We knew him as a brave and a warm-hearted, spiritual person. He was an upstanding and courageous national leader. And he was always very honest and frank while defending his position. ... [Yeltsin] assumed full responsibility for everything he called for, for everything he aspired to. For everything he tried to do and did do for the sake of Russia, for the sake of millions of Russians. And he invariably took upon himself, let it in his heart, all the trials and tribulations of Russia, peoples' difficulties and problems.[93]
Shortly after the news broke, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev issued a statement, saying: "I express my profoundest condolences to the family of the deceased, who had major deeds for the good of the country as well as serious mistakes behind him. It was a tragic destiny."[94]
Memorials

In April 2008, a new memorial to Yeltsin was dedicated in Moscow's Novodevichy cemetery, to mixed reactions. At the memorial service, a military chorus performed Russia's national anthem – an anthem that was changed shortly after the end of Yeltsin's term, to follow the music of the old Soviet anthem, with lyrics reflecting Russia's new status.[95][96]
In 2015 the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Center was opened in Yekaterinburg.[97]
Honours and awards
Russian and Soviet
Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 1st class (12 June 2001) – a particularly outstanding contribution to the establishment and development of the Russian state[98][99]
Order of Lenin (January 1981) – for services to the Communist Party and Soviet state and his fiftieth birthday[99][100]
Order of the Red Banner of Labour, twice;[99][100]
August 1971 – for services in carrying out a five-year plan
January 1974 – for achievements in the construction of the first stage of cold rolling shop at the Verkh-Isetsky Metallurgical Plant in Sverdlovsk
Order of the Badge of Honour (1966) – for achievements in implementing the seven-year plan targets for construction[99][100]
Medal "In Commemoration of the 1000th Anniversary of Kazan" (2006)
Medal "For Valiant Labour. To commemorate the 100th anniversary of Lenin" (November 1969)
Jubilee Medal "Thirty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945" (April 1975)
Jubilee Medal "60 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR" (January 1978)
Gold Medal, Exhibition of Economic Achievements (October 1981)[101]
Medal – "In memory of the army as a volunteer" (March 2012, posthumous) – for a high contribution to the remembrance of the Great Patriotic War, with respect for the history of the Russian state, and for his contribution to the preservation of names of victims in conflicts in defence of the homeland.[102]
Foreign awards
Order of Francisc Skorina (Belarus, 31 December 1999) – for his great personal contribution to the development and strengthening of Belarusian-Russian cooperation[99]
Order of the Golden Eagle (Kazakhstan, 1997)
Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise, 1st class (Ukraine, 22 January 2000) – for his significant personal contribution to the development of Ukrainian-Russian cooperation
Knight Grand Cross with collar of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (Italy, 1991)
Order of the Three Stars, 1st class (Latvia, 2006)
Order "Bethlehem 2000" (Palestinian Authority, 2000)
Knight Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour (France)[103]
Order of Good Hope, 1st class (South Africa, 1999)
Medal of 13 January (Lithuania, 9 January 1992)
Grand Cross of the Order of the Cross of Vytis (Lithuania, 10 June 2011, posthumous)
Order "For Personal Courage" (Mongolia, 18 October 2001)
Departmental awards
Gorchakov Commemorative Medal (Russian Foreign Ministry, 1998)[99]
Golden Olympic Order (International Olympic Committee, 1993)
Religious awards
Order of Saint Blessed Grand Prince Dmitry Donskoy, 1st class (Russian Orthodox Church, 2006)
Chevalier of the Order of the Chain of the Holy Sepulchre (Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, 2000)
Titles
Honorary Citizen of
Sverdlovsk Oblast (2010, posthumous)
Kazan (2005)
Samara Oblast (2006)
Yerevan, Armenia (2002)
Turkmenistan (1993)[104]
Bibliography
Yeltsin, Boris. Against the Grain. London: Jonathan Cape, 1990.
Yeltsin, Boris. The Struggle for Russia. New York: Times Books, 1994.
Shevtsova, Lilia. Yeltsin's Russia: Myths and Reality. Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1999.
See also

Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
History of the Soviet Union
Mikhail Gorbachev
Alexander Rutskoy
Vladimir Putin
President of Russia
Yeltsinism
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin
Spinning Boris
Notes

 on YouTube

 from the

 on YouTube

 at Find a Grave
 book by Lilia Shevtsova (1999)
 on C-SPAN


The Vandalic or Vandal War (Greek: Βανδηλικὸς Πόλεμος, Vandēlikòs Pólemos) was a conflict fought in North Africa (largely in modern Tunisia) between the forces of the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire and the Vandalic Kingdom of Carthage, in 533–534. It was the first of Justinian I's wars of reconquest of the lost Western Roman Empire.
The Vandals had occupied Roman North Africa in the early 5th century, and established an independent kingdom there. Under their first king, Geiseric, the formidable Vandal navy carried out pirate attacks across the Mediterranean, sacked Rome and defeated a massive Roman invasion in 468. After Geiseric's death, relations with the surviving Eastern Roman Empire normalized, although tensions flared up occasionally due to the Vandals' militant adherence to Arianism and their persecution of the Chalcedonian native population. In 530, a palace coup in Carthage overthrew the pro-Roman Hilderic and replaced him with his cousin Gelimer. The Eastern Roman emperor Justinian took this as a pretext to interfere in Vandal affairs, and after he secured his eastern frontier with Sassanid Persia in 532, he began preparing an expedition under general Belisarius, whose secretary Procopius wrote the main historical narrative of the war. Justinian took advantage of, or even instigated, rebellions in the remote Vandal provinces of Sardinia and Tripolitania. These not only distracted Gelimer from the Emperor's preparations, but also weakened Vandal defences through the dispatch of the bulk of the Vandal navy and a large portion of their army under Gelimer's brother Tzazon to Sardinia.
The Roman expeditionary force set sail from Constantinople in late June 533, and after a sea voyage along the coasts of Greece and southern Italy, landed on the African coast at Caputvada in early September, to Gelimer's complete surprise. The Vandal king gathered his forces and met the Roman army at the Battle of Ad Decimum, near Carthage, on 13 September. Gelimer's elaborate plan to encircle and destroy the Roman army came close to success, but Belisarius was able to drive the Vandal army to flight and occupy Carthage. Gelimer withdrew to Bulla Regia, where he gathered his remaining strength, including the army of Tzazon, which returned from Sardinia. In December, Gelimer advanced towards Carthage and met the Romans at the Battle of Tricamarum. The battle resulted in a Roman victory and the death of Tzazon. Gelimer fled to a remote mountain fortress, where he was blockaded until he surrendered in the spring.
Belisarius returned to Constantinople with the Vandals' royal treasure and the captive Gelimer to enjoy a triumph, while Africa was formally restored to imperial rule as the praetorian prefecture of Africa. Imperial control scarcely reached beyond the old Vandal kingdom, however, and the Moorish tribes of the interior proved unwilling to accept imperial rule and soon rose up in rebellion. The new province was shaken by the wars with the Moors and military rebellions, and it was not until 548 that peace was restored and Roman government firmly established.
Background
Establishment of the Vandalic Kingdom
In the course of the gradual decline and dissolution of the Western Roman Empire in the early 5th century, the Germanic tribe of the Vandals, allied with the Alans, had established themselves in the Iberian peninsula. In 429, the Roman governor of the Diocese of Africa, Bonifacius, who had rebelled against the West Roman emperor Valentinian III (r. 425–455) and was facing an invasion by imperial troops, called upon the Vandalic King Geiseric for aid. Thus, in May 429, Geiseric crossed the straits of Gibraltar with his entire people, reportedly 80,000 in total.[1][2] Geiseric's Vandals and Alans, however, had their own plans, and aimed to conquer the African provinces outright. Their possession of Mauretania Caesariensis, Mauretania Sitifensis and most of Numidia was recognized in 435 by the Western Roman court, but this was only a temporary expedient. Warfare soon recommenced, and in October 439, the capital of Africa, Carthage, fell to the Vandals. In 442, another treaty exchanged the provinces hitherto held by the Vandals with the core of the African diocese, the rich provinces of Zeugitana and Byzacena, which the Vandals received no longer as foederati of the Empire, but as their own possessions. These events marked the foundation of the Vandalic Kingdom, as the Vandals made Carthage their capital and settled around it.[3][4] Although the Vandals now gained control of the lucrative African grain trade with Italy, they also launched raids on the coasts of the Mediterranean that ranged as far as the Aegean Sea and culminated in their sack of Rome itself in 455, which allegedly lasted for two weeks. Taking advantage of the chaos that followed Valentinian's death in 455, Geiseric then regained control—albeit rather tenuous—of the Mauretanian provinces, and with his fleet took over Sardinia, Corsica and the Balearic Islands. Sicily barely escaped the same fate through the presence there of Ricimer.[5][6]
Throughout this period, the Vandals survived several Roman attempts at a counterstrike: the Eastern Roman general Aspar had led an unsuccessful expedition in 431, an expedition assembled by the Western emperor Majorian (r. 457–461) off the coast of Spain in 460 was scattered or captured by the Vandals before it could set sail, and finally, in 468, Geiseric defeated a huge joint expedition by both western and eastern empires under Basiliscus.[7][8] In the aftermath of this disaster, and following further Vandal raids against the shores of Greece, the eastern emperor Zeno (r. 474–491) concluded a "perpetual peace" with Geiseric (474/476).[9][10]
Roman–Vandal relations until 533
The Vandal state was unique in many respects among the Germanic kingdoms that succeeded the Western Roman Empire: instead of respecting and continuing the established Roman socio-political order, they completely replaced it with their own. Whereas the kings of Western Europe continued to pay deference to the emperors and minted coinage with their portraits, the Vandal kings portrayed themselves as fully independent rulers. The Vandals also consciously differentiated themselves from the native Romano-African population through their continued use of their native language and peculiar dress, which served to emphasize their distinct social position as the elite of the kingdom. In addition, the Vandals—like most Germanics, adherents of Arianism—persecuted the Chalcedonian majority of the local population, especially in the reigns of Huneric (r. 477–484) and Gunthamund (r. 484–496).[11][12] The emperors at Constantinople protested at this, but the peace held for almost sixty years, and relations were often friendly, especially between Emperor Anastasius I (r. 491–518) and Thrasamund (r. 496–523), who largely ceased the persecutions.[13]

In 523, Hilderic (r. 523–530), the son of Huneric, ascended the throne at Carthage. Himself a descendant of Valentinian III, Hilderic re-aligned his kingdom and brought it closer to the Roman Empire: according to the account of Procopius (The Vandalic War, I.9) he was an unwarlike, amiable person, who ceased the persecution of the Chalcedonians, exchanged gifts and embassies with Justinian I (r. 527–565) even before the latter's rise to the throne, and even replaced his image in his coins with that of the emperor. Justinian evidently hoped that this rapprochement would lead to the peaceful subordination of the Vandal state to his empire.[10][14] However, Hilderic's pro-Roman policies, coupled with a defeat suffered against the Moors in Byzacena, led to opposition among the Vandal nobility, which resulted in his overthrow and imprisonment in 530 by his cousin, Gelimer (r. 530–534). Justinian seized the opportunity, demanding Hilderic's restoration, with Gelimer predictably refusing to do so. Justinian then demanded Hilderic's release to Constantinople, threatening war otherwise. Geiseric was unwilling to surrender a rival claimant to Justinian, who could use him to stir up trouble in his kingdom, and probably expected war to come either way, according to J.B. Bury. He consequently refused Justinian's demand on the grounds that this was an internal matter among the Vandals.[15][16][17]
Justinian now had his pretext, and with peace restored on his eastern frontier with Sassanid Persia in 532, he started assembling an invasion force.[18] According to Procopius (The Vandalic War, I.10), the news of Justinian's decision to go to war with the Vandals caused great consternation among the capital's elites, in whose minds the disaster of 468 was still fresh. The financial officials resented the expenditure involved, while the military was weary from the Persian war and feared the Vandals' sea-power. The emperor's scheme received support mostly from the Church, reinforced by the arrival of victims of renewed persecutions from Africa. Only the powerful minister John the Cappadocian dared to openly voice his opposition to the expedition, however, and Justinian disregarded it and pressed on with his preparations.[19][20]
Diplomatic preparations and revolts in Tripolitania and Sardinia
Soon after his seizure of power, Gelimer's domestic position began to deteriorate, as he persecuted his political enemies among the Vandal nobility, confiscating their property and executing many of them.[21] These actions undermined his already doubtful legitimacy in the eyes of many, and contributed to the outbreak of two revolts in remote provinces of the Vandal kingdom: in Sardinia, where the local governor, Godas, declared himself an independent ruler, and shortly after in Tripolitania, where the native population, led by a certain Pudentius, rebelled against Vandal rule.[21][22] Although Procopius' narrative makes both uprisings seem coincidental, Ian Hughes points out the fact that both rebellions broke out shortly before the commencement of the Roman expedition against the Vandals, and that both Godas and Pudentius immediately asked for assistance from Justinian, as evidence of an active diplomatic involvement by the Emperor in their preparation.[23]
In response to Godas' emissaries, Justinian detailed Cyril, one of the officers of the foederati, with 400 men, to accompany the invasion fleet and then sail on to Sardinia.[24] Gelimer reacted to Godas' rebellion by sending the bulk of his fleet, 120 of his best vessels, and 5,000 men under his own brother Tzazon, to suppress it. The Vandal king's decision played a crucial role in the outcome of the war, for it removed from the scene the Vandal navy, the main obstacle to a Roman landing in Africa, as well as a large part of his army. Gelimer also chose to ignore the revolt in Tripolitania for the moment, as it was both a lesser threat and more remote, while his lack of manpower constrained him to await Tzazon's return from Sardinia before undertaking further campaigns.[22][25][26] At the same time, both rulers tried to win over allies: Gelimer contacted the Visigoth king Theudis (r. 531–548) and proposed an alliance,[26] while Justinian secured the benevolent neutrality and support of the Ostrogothic Kingdom of Italy, which had strained relations with the Vandals over the ill treatment of the Ostrogoth princess Amalafrida, the wife of Thrasamund. The Ostrogoth court readily agreed to allow the Roman invasion fleet to use the harbour of Syracuse in Sicily and establish a market for the provisioning of the Roman troops there.[27][28][29]
Opposing forces

Justinian selected one of his most trusted and talented generals, Belisarius, who had recently distinguished himself against the Persians and in the suppression of the Nika riots, to lead the expedition. As Ian Hughes points out, Belisarius was also eminently suited for this appointment for two other reasons: he was a native Latin-speaker, and was solicitous of the welfare of the local population, keeping a tight leash on his troops. Both these qualities would be crucial in winning support from the Latin-speaking African population.[30] Belisarius was accompanied by his wife, Antonina, and by Procopius, his secretary, who wrote the history of the war.[27]
According to Procopius (The Vandalic War, I.11), the army consisted of 10,000 infantry, partly drawn from the field army (comitatenses) and partly from among the foederati, as well as 5,000 cavalry. There were also some 1,500–2,000 of Belisarius' own retainers (bucellarii), an elite corps (it is unclear if their number is included in the 5,000 cavalry mentioned as a total figure by Procopius). In addition, there were two additional bodies of allied troops, both mounted archers, 600 Huns and 400 Heruls. The army was led by an array of experienced officers, among whom the eunuch Solomon was chosen as Belisarius' chief of staff (domesticus) and the former praetorian prefect Archelaus was placed in charge of the army's provisioning. The whole force was transported on 500 vessels manned by 30,000 sailors under admiral Calonymus of Alexandria, guarded by ninety-two dromon warships.[31][32][33] The traditional view, as expressed by J.B. Bury, is that the expeditionary force was remarkably small for the task, especially given the military reputation of the Vandals, and that perhaps it reflects the limit of the fleet's carrying capacity, or perhaps it was an intentional move to limit the impact of any defeat.[31] Ian Hughes however comments that even in comparison with the armies of the early Roman Empire, Belisarius' army was a "large, well-balanced force capable of overcoming the Vandals and may have contained a higher proportion of high quality, reliable troops than the armies stationed in the east".[24]
On the Vandal side, the picture is less clear. The Vandal army was not a professional and mostly volunteer force like the East Roman army, but comprised every able-bodied male of the Vandal people. Hence modern estimates on the available forces vary along with estimates on the total Vandal population, from a high of between 30,000–40,000 men out of a total Vandal population of at most 200,000 people (Diehl and Bury), to as few as 25,000 men—or even 20,000, if their losses against the Moors are taken into account—for a population base of 100,000 (Hughes).[22][34][35] Despite their martial reputation, the Vandals had grown less warlike over time, having come to lead a luxurious life amidst the riches of Africa. In addition, their mode of fighting was ill-suited to confronting Belisarius' veterans: the Vandal army was composed exclusively of cavalry, lightly armoured and armed only for hand-to-hand combat, to the point of neglecting entirely the use of bows or javelins, in stark contrast to Belisarius' heavily armoured cataphracts and horse archers.[22][36][37]
The Vandals were also weakened by the hostility of their Roman subjects, the continued existence among the Vandals of a faction loyal to Hilderic, and by the ambivalent position of the Moorish tribes, who watched the oncoming conflict from the sidelines, ready to join the victor and seize the spoils.[22][38]
The war
Belisarius' army sails to Africa
Amidst much pomp and ceremony, with Justinian and the Patriarch of Constantinople in attendance, the Roman fleet set sail around 21 June 533. The initial progress was slow, as the fleet spent five days at Heraclea Perinthus waiting for horses and a further four days at Abydus due to lack of wind. The fleet left the Dardanelles on 1 July, and crossed the Aegean Sea to the port of Methone, where it was joined by the last contingents of troops. Belisarius took advantage of an enforced stay there due to a lull in the wind to train his troops and acquaint the disparate contingents with each other. It was at Methone, however, that 500 men died of dysentery caused by mouldy bread. According to Procopius, the responsibility fell on John the Cappadocian, who had cut costs by baking it only once, with the result that the bread went bad. Justinian was informed, but John does not appear to have been punished. Belisarius took steps to remedy the situation, and the army soon recovered.[27][39]
From Methone, the fleet sailed up the Ionian Sea to Zacynthus, from where they crossed over to Italy. The crossing took longer than expected due to lack of wind, and the army suffered from lack of fresh water when the supplies they had brought aboard went bad. Eventually, the fleet reached Catania in Sicily, from where Belisarius sent Procopius ahead to Syracuse to gather intelligence on the Vandals' activities. By chance, Procopius met a merchant friend of his there, whose servant had just arrived from Carthage. The latter informed Procopius that not only were the Vandals unaware of Belisarius' sailing, but that Gelimer, who had just dispatched Tzazon's expedition to Sardinia, was away from Carthage at the small inland town of Hermione. Procopius quickly informed Belisarius, who immediately ordered the army to re-embark and set sail for the African coast. After sailing by Malta, they reached Cape Caputvada on the eastern shore of modern Tunisia some 162 Roman miles (240km) south from Carthage.[40][41][42]
Advance on Carthage and the Battle of Ad Decimum
When the Roman fleet reached Africa, a council was held aboard Belisarius' flagship (The Vandalic War, I.15), where many of his officers advocated an immediate attack on Carthage itself, especially since it was the only fortified city in the Vandal realm, the walls of the other cities having been torn down to prevent a rebellion. Belisarius, however, mindful of the fate of the 468 expedition and wary of an encounter with the Vandal fleet, spoke against it. Thus the army disembarked and built a fortified camp to spend the night.[26][40][43]
Belisarius knew that success for his expedition relied on gaining the support of the local population, which had largely retained its Roman identity and to which he presented himself as a liberator. Thus on the next day of the landing, when some of his men stole some fruit from a local orchard, he severely punished them, and assembled the army and exhorted them to maintain discipline and restraint towards the native population, lest they abandon their Roman sympathies and go over to the Vandals. Belisarius' pleas bore results, for, as Procopius reports (The Vandalic War, I.17), "the soldiers behaved with moderation, and they neither began any unjust brawls nor did anything out of the way, and [Belisarius], by displaying great gentleness and kindness, won the Libyans to his side so completely that thereafter he made the journey as if in his own land".[44][45][46]
Then the Roman army began its march north, following the coastal road. 300 horse under John the Armenian were detached as an advance guard some 3 miles (4.5km) in front of the main army, while the 600 Huns covered the army's left flank. Belisarius himself with his bucellarii led up the rear, to guard against any attack from Gelimer, who was known to be in the vicinity. The fleet followed the army, sailing along the coast.[40][47] The first town they encountered was Syllectum, which was captured by a detachment under Boriades by a ruse. In an attempt to sow division among the Vandals, Belisarius gave a letter written by Justinian and addressed to the Vandal nobles to a captured Vandal messenger, in which the emperor claimed to be campaigning on behalf of the legitimate king Hilderic against the usurper Gelimer. As the messenger was too afraid to deliver the letter, this ploy came to nothing.[44][46]

Gelimer, in the meantime, upon learning of the Romans' arrival, immediately notified his brother Ammatas in Carthage to assemble the Vandal forces in the vicinity, as well as to execute Hilderic and his relatives, while his secretary Bonifatius was ordered to load the royal treasure on a ship and sail for Spain if the Romans won.[26][48] Deprived of his best troops, which were with Tzazon, Gelimer contented himself with shadowing the northward march of the Roman army, all the while preparing a decisive engagement before Carthage, at a place called Ad Decimum ("at the tenth [milepost]") where he had ordered Ammatas to bring his forces.[47][48][49] The Romans advanced through Thapsus, Leptis Parva and Hadrumetum to Grasse, where for the first time they engaged in a skirmish with the scouts of Gelimer's army. After exchanging blows, both parties retired to their camps.[47][48] From Grasse, Belisarius turned his army westwards, cutting across the neck of the Cape Bon peninsula. This was the most dangerous part of the route to Carthage, with the fleet out of sight.[50]
Thus, on the morning of 13 September, the tenth day of the march from Caputvada, the Roman army approached Ad Decimum. There Gelimer planned to ambush and encircle them, using a force under his brother Ammatas to block their advance and engage them, while 2,000 men under his nephew Gibamund would attack their left flank, and Gelimer himself with the main army would attack from the rear and completely annihilate the Roman army. In the event, the three forces failed to synchronize exactly: Ammatas arrived early and was killed as he attempted a reconnaissance with a small force by the Roman vanguard, while Gibamund's force was intercepted by the Hunnic flank guard and was utterly destroyed. Unaware of all this, Gelimer marched up with the main army and scattered the Roman advance forces present at Ad Decimum. Victory might have been his, but he then came upon his dead brother's body, and apparently forgot all about the battle. This gave Belisarius the time to rally his troops, come up with his main cavalry force and defeat the disorganized Vandals. Gelimer with the remainder of his forces fled westwards to Numidia. The Battle of Ad Decimum ended in a crushing Roman victory, and Carthage lay open and undefended before Belisarius.[51][52]
Belisarius' entry into Carthage and Gelimer's counterattack
It was only by nightfall, when John the Armenian with his men and the 600 Huns rejoined his army, that Belisarius realized the extent of his victory. The cavalry spent the night at the battlefield. In the next morning, as the infantry (and Antonina) caught up, the whole army made for Carthage, where it arrived as night was falling. The Carthaginians had thrown open the gates and illuminated the city in celebration, but Belisarius, fearing a possible ambush in the darkness and wishing to keep his soldiers under tight control, refrained from entering the city, and encamped before it.
[53][54] In the meantime, the fleet had rounded Cape Bon and, after learning of the Roman victory, had anchored at Stagnum, some 7.5km from the city. Ignoring Belisarius' instructions, Calonymus and his men proceeded to plunder the merchant settlement of Mandriacum nearby.[54]
On the morning of the next day, 15 September, Belisarius drew up the army for battle before the city walls, but as no enemy appeared, he led his army into the city, after again exhorting his troops to show discipline. The Roman army received a warm welcome from the populace, which was favourably impressed by its restraint. While Belisarius himself took possession of the royal palace, seated himself on the king's throne, and consumed the dinner which Gelimer had confidently ordered to be ready for his own victorious return, the fleet entered the Lake of Tunis and the army was billeted throughout the city. The remaining Vandals were rounded up and placed under guard to prevent them from causing trouble. Belisarius dispatched Solomon to Constantinople to bear the emperor news of the victory, but expecting an imminent re-appearance of Gelimer with his army, he lost no time in repairing the largely ruined walls of the city and rendering it capable of sustaining a siege.[53][55]

During the following weeks, while Belisarius remained in Carthage strengthening its walls, Gelimer established himself and the remnant of his army at Bulla Regia. By distributing money he had managed to cement the loyalty of the locals to his cause, and sent messages recalling Tzazon and his men from Sardinia, where they had been successful in re-establishing Vandal authority and killing Godas. While waiting for Tzazon's arrival, the Vandal king's army also increased by the arrival of more and more fugitives from the battle of Ad Decimum, as well as by a contingent of his Moorish allies.[56] Most of the Moorish tribes of Numidia and Byzacena, however, sent embassies to Belisarius, pledging allegiance to the Empire. Some even offered hostages and asked for the insignia of office traditionally awarded to them by the emperor: a gilded silver staff and a silver crown, a white cloak, a white tunic, and a gilded boot. Belisarius had been furnished by Justinian with these items in anticipation of this demand, and duly dispatched them along with sums of money. Nevertheless, it was clear that, as long as the outcome of the war remained undecided, neither side could count on the firm loyalty of the Moors.[53][56] During this period, messengers from Tzazon, sent to announce his recovery of Sardinia, sailed into Carthage unaware that the city had fallen and were taken captive, followed shortly after by Gelimer's envoys to Theudis, who had reached Spain after the news of the Roman successes had arrived there and hence failed to secure an alliance. Belisarius was also reinforced by the Roman general Cyril with his contingent, who had sailed to Sardinia only to find it once again in possession of the Vandals.[57]
As soon as Tzazon received his brother's message, he left Sardinia and landed in Africa, joining up with Gelimer at Bulla. The Vandal king now determined to advance on Carthage. His intentions were not clear; the traditional interpretation is that he hoped to reduce the city by blockading it, but Ian Hughes believes that, lacking the reserves for a protracted war of attrition, he hoped to force Belisarius into a "single, decisive confrontation". Approaching the city, the Vandal army cut the aqueduct supplying it with water, and attempted to prevent provisions from arriving in the city. Gelimer also dispatched agents to the city to undermine the loyalty of the inhabitants and the imperial army. Belisarius, who was alert to the possibility of treachery, set an example by impaling a citizen of Carthage who intended to join the Vandals. The greatest danger of defection came from the Huns, who were disgruntled because they had been ferried to Africa against their will and feared being left there as a garrison. Indeed, Vandal agents had already made contact with them, but Belisarius managed to maintain their allegiance—at least for the moment—by making a solemn promise that after the final victory they would be richly rewarded and allowed to return to their homes. Their loyalty, however, remained suspect, and, like the Moors, the Huns probably waited to see who would emerge as the victor and rally to him.[58][59]
Tricamarum and the surrender of Gelimer
After securing the loyalty of the populace and the army, and completing the repairs to the walls, Belisarius resolved to meet Gelimer in battle, and in mid-December marched out of Carthage in the direction of the fortified Vandal camp at Tricamarum, some 28km from Carthage. As at Ad Decimum, the Roman cavalry proceeded in advance of the infantry, and the ensuing Battle of Tricamarum was a purely cavalry affair, with Belisarius' army considerably outnumbered. Both armies kept their most untrustworthy elements—the Moors and Huns—in reserve. John the Armenian played the most important role on the Roman side, and Tzazon on the Vandal. John led repeated charges at the Vandal centre, culminating in the death of Tzazon. This was followed by a general Roman attack across the front and the collapse of the Vandal army, which retreated to its camp. Gelimer, seeing that all was lost, fled with a few attendants into the wilds of Numidia, whereupon the remaining Vandals gave up all thoughts of resistance and abandoned their camp to be plundered by the Romans.[60][61] Like the previous battle at Ad Decimum, it is again notable that Belisarius failed to keep his forces together, and was forced to fight with a considerable numerical disadvantage. The dispersal of his army after the battle, looting heedlessly and leaving themselves vulnerable to a potential Vandal counter-attack, was also an indication of the poor discipline in the Roman army and the command difficulties Belisarius faced.[62] As Bury comments, the expedition's fate might have been quite different "if Belisarius had been opposed to a commander of some ability and experience in warfare", and points out that Procopius himself "expresses amazement at the issue of the war, and does not hesitate to regard it not as a feat of superior strategy but as a paradox of fortune".[63]

A Roman detachment under John the Armenian pursued the fleeing Vandal king for five days and nights, and was almost upon him when he was killed in an accident. The Romans halted to mourn their leader, allowing Gelimer to escape, first to Hippo Regius and from there to the city of Medeus on Mount Papua, on whose Moorish inhabitants he could rely. Belisarius sent 400 men under the Herul Pharas to blockade him there.[64][65] Belisarius himself made for Hippo Regius, where the Vandals, who had fled to various sanctuaries, surrendered to the Roman general, who promised that they would be well treated and sent to Constantinople in spring. Belisarius was also fortunate in recovering the Vandal royal treasure, which had been loaded on a ship at Hippo. Bonifatius, Gelimer's secretary, was supposed to sail with it to Spain, where Gelimer too would later follow, but adverse winds kept the ship in harbour and in the end, Bonifatius handed it over to the Romans in exchange for his own safety (as well as a considerable share of the treasure, if Procopius is to be believed).[63][66] Belisarius also began to extend his authority over the more distant provinces and outposts of the Vandal kingdom: Cyril was dispatched to Sardinia and Corsica with Tzazon's head as proof of his victory, John was sent to Caesarea on the coast of Mauretania Caesariensis, another John was sent to the twin fortresses of Septem and Gadira, which controlled the Straits of Gibraltar, and Apollinarius to take possession of the Balearic Islands. Aid was also sent to the provincials in Tripolitania, who had been subject to attacks by the local Moorish tribes.[67][68] Belisarius also demanded the return of the port of Lilybaeum in western Sicily from the Ostrogoths, who had captured it during the war, as it too had been part of the Vandal kingdom. An exchange of letters followed between Justinian and the Ostrogoth court, through which Justinian was drawn into the intrigues of the latter, leading to the Roman invasion of Italy a year later.[69]
Meanwhile, Gelimer remained blockaded by Pharas at the mountain stronghold of Medeus, but, as the blockade dragged through the winter, Pharas grew impatient. He attacked the mountain stronghold, only to be beaten back with the loss of a quarter of his men. While a success for Gelimer, it did not alter his hopeless situation, as he and his followers remained tightly blockaded and began to suffer from lack of food. Pharas sent him messages calling upon him to surrender and spare his followers the misery, but it was not until March that the Vandal king agreed to surrender after receiving guarantees for his safety. Gelimer was then escorted to Carthage.[64][68]
Aftermath
Belisarius' triumph

Belisarius would not remain long in Africa to consolidate his success, as a number of officers in his army, in hopes of their own advancement, sent messengers to Justinian claiming that Belisarius intended to establish his own kingdom in Africa. Justinian then gave his general two choices as a test of his intentions: he could return to Constantinople or remain in Africa. Belisarius, who had captured one of the messengers and was aware of the slanders against him, chose to return.[70][71] He left Africa in the summer, accompanied by Gelimer, large numbers of captured Vandals—who were enrolled in five regiments of the Vandali Iustiniani ("Vandals of Justinian") by the emperor—and the Vandal treasure, which included many objects looted from Rome 80 years earlier, including the imperial regalia and the menorah of the Second Temple.[72] In Constantinople, Belisarius was given the honour of celebrating a triumph—the first to be celebrated in Constantinople since its foundation and the first granted to a private citizen in over five and a half centuries[73]—and described by Procopius:

“And there was booty—first of all, whatever articles are wont to be set apart for the royal service—thrones of gold and carriages in which it is customary for a king's consort to ride, and much jewelry made of precious stones, and golden drinking cups, and all the other things which are useful for the royal table. And there was also silver weighing many thousands of talents and all the royal treasure amounting to an exceedingly great sum, and among these were the treasures of the Jews, which Titus, the son of Vespasian, together with certain others, had brought to Rome after the capture of Jerusalem. [...] And there were slaves in the triumph, among whom was Gelimer himself, wearing some sort of a purple garment upon his shoulders, and all his family, and as many of the Vandals as were very tall and fair of body. And when Gelimer reached the hippodrome and saw the emperor sitting upon a lofty seat and the people standing on either side and realized as he looked about in what an evil plight he was, he neither wept nor cried out, but ceased not saying over in the words of the Hebrew scripture: "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." And when he came before the emperor's seat, they stripped off the purple garment, and compelled him to fall prone on the ground and do obeisance to the Emperor Justinian. This also Belisarius did, as being a suppliant of the emperor along with him.”—Procopius, The Vandalic War, II.9
Gelimer was given an ample estate in Galatia, and would have been raised to patrician rank if he had not steadfastly refused to renounce his Arian faith.[64] Belisarius was also named consul ordinarius for the year 535, allowing him to celebrate a second triumphal procession, being carried through the streets seated on his consular curule chair, held aloft by Vandal warriors, distributing largesse to the populace from his share of the war booty.[74]
Re-establishment of Roman rule in Africa and the Moorish Wars

Immediately after Tricamarum, Justinian hastened to proclaim the recovery of Africa:

“Our predecessors did not deserve this favor of God, as they were not only not permitted to liberate Africa, but even saw Rome itself captured by the Vandals, and all the Imperial insignia taken from thence to Africa. Now, however, God, in his mercy, has not only delivered Africa and all her provinces into Our hands, but the Imperial insignia as well, which, having been removed at the capture of Rome, He has restored to us.”—Codex Iustinianus, I.XXVII
The emperor was determined to restore the province to its former extent and prosperity—indeed, in the words of J.B. Bury, he intended "to wipe out all traces of the Vandal conquest, as if it had never been, and to restore the conditions which had existed before the coming of Geiseric". To this end, the Vandals were barred from holding office or even property, which was returned to its former owners; most Vandal males became slaves, while the victorious Roman soldiers took their wives; and the Chalcedonian Church was restored to its former position while the Arian Church was dispossessed and persecuted. As a result of these measures, the Vandal population was diminished and emasculated. It gradually disappeared entirely, becoming absorbed into the broader provincial population.[72][75] Already in April 534, before the surrender of Gelimer, the old Roman provincial division along with the full apparatus of Roman administration was restored, under a praetorian prefect rather than under a diocesan vicarius, since the original parent prefecture of Africa, Italy, was still under Ostrogothic rule. The army of Belisarius was left behind to form the garrison of the new prefecture, under the overall command of a magister militum and several regional duces.[76] Almost from the start, an extensive fortification programme was also initiated, including the construction of city walls as well as smaller forts to protect the countryside, whose remnants are still among the most prominent archaeological remains in the region.[77][78]
Despite Justinian's intentions and proclamations, however, Roman control over Africa was not yet secure. During his campaign, Belisarius had secured most of the provinces of Byzacena, Zeugitana and Tripolitania. Further west, on the other hand, imperial control extended in a series of strongholds captured by the fleet along the coast as far as Constantine, while most of the inland areas of Numidia and Mauretania remained under the control of the local Moorish tribes, as indeed had been the case under the Vandal kings.[79] The Moors initially acknowledged the Emperor's suzerainty and gave hostages to the imperial authorities, but they soon became restive and rose in revolt. The first imperial governor, Belisarius' former domesticus Solomon, who combined the offices of both magister militum and praetorian prefect, was able to score successes against them and strengthen Roman rule in Africa, but his work was interrupted by a widespread military mutiny in 536. The mutiny was eventually subdued by Germanus, a cousin of Justinian, and Solomon returned in 539. He fell, however, in the Battle of Cillium in 544 against the united Moorish tribes, and Roman Africa was again in jeopardy. It would not be until 548 that the resistance of the Moorish tribes would be finally broken by the talented general John Troglita.[80][81]

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