The Chechens had humiliated the might of Russia in the First Chechen War (1994–6), which [Boris] Yeltsin had… — John Sweeney

The Chechens had humiliated the might of Russia in the First Chechen War (1994–6), which [Boris] Yeltsin had started in a drunken rage. The Russian Army had fought the war with great brutality and greater incompetence. The Chechens fought them to a kind of stalemate, partly because Yeltsin, when he had sobered up, realized that he had been stupid and cruel.

p. 60Source: Wikiquote · CC BY-SA 4.0