Boris Yeltsin Quotes

“A trained Soviet KGB operative then heading its successor outfit, the FSB, Putin had done the sitting Russian president the memorable favor of successfully derailing the criminal investigation into the Yeltsin clan. He did so by blackmailing Russia’s prosecutor general with a fake sex tape.”
― Rachel Maddow, Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth

“To this day, huge numbers of people are convinced that Yeltsin excoriated the party bosses, published critical reports, and suffered for his beliefs. None of that happened. Those bosses, in the course of their internal intrigues, first appointed him head of the Moscow regional committee of the CPSU, that is, mayor of Moscow, and then, when they began to fall out with him, transferred him to the position of head of the State Construction Committee, that is, minister of construction. Some fall from grace! He did not even have to settle for a lower class of limousine, and remained firmly in the milieu of treacherous officialdom. His family remained the same, too, with exactly the same values, or rather, the same complete absence of values and only a craving for personal luxury and wealth. That was to prove crucial when the family was transformed into "the Family."

Yeltsin was devoid of genuine ideological motivation and driven only by a lust for power. He was an extremely talented individual, a truly intuitive politician who sensed the popular mood and knew how to exploit it. He was prepared to act decisively and boldly on occasion, but always in the interests of himself and his own power rather than of the people or the nation.

I am writing this vehement denunciation of Yeltisn, partially because I regret having been a blind admirer of his and of that part of Russian society which, only too ready to support everything he did, paved the way for the lawlessness we live with today.”
― Alexei Navalny, Patriot: A Memoir