Russian lawmaker Vladimir Zhirinovsky has died at age 75, the speaker of the lower house of Russia’s parliament said Wednesday. State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said Zhirinovsky died after “a serious and prolonged illness.” His death was announced in parliament, where lawmakers stood in silence to honor his memory. Zhirinovsky had been the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party for three decades. He founded the Liberal Democratic Party in 1991 as the Soviet Union was pulling apart, and the group became the country’s first officially recognized opposition party. In its early years, the party had a significant presence in parliament. It won the single largest share of votes in the 1993 parliamentary election and took 64 seats in the 450-member Duma. Its prominence steadily declined, and after the 2021 election, the party was down to 21 seats. Zhirinovsky was born in Almaty, the capital of then-Soviet Kazakhstan, as Vladimir Volfovich Eidelstein, …