The former Russian President Boris Yeltsin was buried with military honours in the historic Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow on Wednesday.

The burial was preceded by a funeral service, held in the country's biggest church "Christ the Saviour".

Former US presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, are among leading international figures who attended the ceremony.

The former British Prime Minister John Major, German President Horst Kohler and leaders from ex-Soviet countries, including Armenia and Lithuania, which gained their independence in the Soviet collapse, have also attended the funeral.

Bulgaria was represented by its first democratically elected President Zhelyu Zhelev.

The present Russia's head of state Vladimir Putin has declared an official day of mourning on April 25 to commemorate the death of Boris Yeltsin.

Russians' farewell to their late leader began on Tuesday with a lying-in-state from 1230 GMT and a service at 1300 GMT in Christ the Saviour, a lavish golden-domed church in central Moscow. Hundreds of people were queuing to pay their homage late into the night.

Yeltsin, the first President of the Russian Federation from 1991 to 1999, will be buried the same day in Moscow.

Boris Yeltsin, who engineered the final collapse of the Soviet Union, passed away on Monday at 76. He died of heart failure in Moscow Central Clinical Hospital.

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