What have they done to our poor people?... [the] pain for all of us, for our country so rich, so talented and so exhausted by incessant experiments..… - Boris Yeltsin

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 world war.

Russia has entered the year 1997 with a heavy burden of problems and the situation in the country is extremely complex, above all as concerns the economy. We have failed to stop the production slump and ensure the influx of investments. Society's belief in the ability of the power structures to stop the onslaught of crime is being undermined. It is ever more difficult to provide the armed forces with the essentials. The already low standard of living for the majority of Russian citizens continues to decline. People are suffering from delays in the payment of wages, pensions and benefits. All efforts to solve this problem have failed to yield tangible results

Despite all the difficulties and severe trials being experienced by the people, the democratic process in the country is acquiring an increasingly broad sweep and an irreversible character. The peoples of Russia are becoming masters of their destiny.