A Different President.
Russia Resurgent
Chapter 1: 1996 Russian Elections
Russia and the World held their breath as on 3rd July, the results of the 1996 elections came in.
Many people today even wonder why Yeltsin even tried. Under him Russia had become the butt of all Western Country’s jokes and corruption, crime, oligarchs etc were the ones ruining Russia unchecked under Yeltsin. The 1993 Constitutional Crisis in Russia had made Yeltsin very unpopular in Russia. And the votes came in.
***
Nominee: Boris Yeltsin
Party: Independent
Home State: Moscow
Percentage of Vote: 13%
Boris Yeltsin
***
Nominee: Gennady Zyuganov
Party: Communist Party of Russia
Home State: Moscow
Percentage of Vote: 28%
Gennady Zyuganov
***
Nominee: Grigory Yavlinsky
Party: Yabloko (Social Democratic Party of Russia)
Home State: St. Petersburg
Percentage of Vote: 53%
Grigory Yavlinsky.
***
Grigory Yavlinsky won the Russian Elections of 1996 with a good lead over Yeltsin and Zyuganov. However Yeltsin considered the electoral results to be fraudulent. Considering Yavlinsky didn’t have total plurality of votes, Yavlinsky offered Zyuganov to form a coalition government between the Social Democrats and the Communists, also mainly to combat Yeltsin, who would not take this result laying down. Zyuganov initially wished to turn the offer down, however after much goading from the other members of the communist party, Zyuganov agreed and on August 9th, Grigory Yavlinsky was inaugurated as the 2nd President of the Russian Federation.
The new Cabinet of the Russian Federation was thus formed as:-
President: Grigory Yavlinsky
Prime Minister: Gennady Zyuganov
Minister of Agriculture: Vladimir Bulgak
Minister of Defense: Sergey Shoyu
Minister of Economy: Yevgeny Yasin
Minister of Education: Vladimir Fillipov
Minister of Foreign Affairs: Igor Ivanov
Minister of Internal Affairs: Anatoly Kulikov
Minister of Justice: Sergey Stephashin
Minister of Transportation: Nikolai Tsach.
Minister of Health: Yury Shevchenko
Minister of Culture: Vladimir Yegerov
Minister of Emergency Affairs: Alexander Lebed.
Meanwhile the first course of business for Yavlinsky as president was the ongoing Chechen Crisis in Chechnya. On 11th August the situation in Grozny was dire as Chechen fighters had been able to infiltrate and take control of the majority parts of the city of Grozny. Yavlinsky gave a speech in the Kremlin that day to signify his commitment to bring back Chechnya into the fold of the Russian Federation.
“The History of both Chechnya and Russia are long and glorious. However another thing that they have in common, is that Russia and Chechnya stood together. When Napoleon invaded, some of the bravest troops were Chechnya’s own people. When Hitler and the Nazis invaded, some of our best troops came from Chechnya. We have stood together for centuries, and we shall continue to do so. However we know that rapprochement shall be a hard and arduous journey. However this government is willing to provide special privileges and incentives to the people of Chechnya. We implore the people of Chechnya to see reason and to stop this bloodshed in our country.”
On August 14th the Russian General Konstantin Pullikovsky threatened a massive airstrike and ballistic missile bombardment of Grozny and was televised into the public. Yavlinsky publicly denounced Pullikovsky’s declaration and declared that no airstrikes or ballistic missile attack on Grozny would happen and that General Pullikovsky had been sacked and replaced with Alexander Lebed who was now General Lebed on duty.
General Alexander Lebed.
Lebed was ordered to bring Grozny back under Russian control and to break the Ichkerian Republic’s power there and then, whilst limiting the Civilian casualties. Lebed on August 14th gave a speech broadcast over Grozny imploring the civilians to leave the city and to enter the refugee camps that the Russian Army had hastily assembled outside of the city out of the warzones, before the Russian tanks and artillery started to attack the city. Lebed told them that the offer would stand until 11:59 PM August 18th and the fighting would resume from 12:00 AM August 19th. The end result was a massive exodus of Grozny’s populace as 2/3 of the populace managed to escape the city. The previous Russian Army’s incompetence was slightly reduced as proper coordination had allowed them to maneuver the refugees out pretty quickly and in an orderly manner.
On 12:00 AM, August 19th the Russian tanks started to fire at Chechen positions and trenches in the night as the Chechen Fighters were pushed back by the Russian firepower which far outmatched the Chechen firepower. Russian infantry soldiers managed to take control of the northern part of the city by daylight and the fighting continued in the city center and the southern portions of the city.
On 7:50 AM, the Russian T-72 tanks entered and managed to take control of R308, an important junction in Grozny. In the east, the Russian troops entered and took control of the R36 and R38 roadways leading outside of the city managing to cut off the Chechen troops cutting into Russian lines and committing guerilla actions. On 10:10 AM, the Russian troops up north managed to seize the center part of the city and take control of the eastern part of the city as well. The Chechen fighters withdrew to the southwest and committed their reserves for a final defense. The Russian tanks and armored cars managed to form an assault positioning and started to assault the Chechen defensive line on 2:15 PM. The tanks and troops quickly overran the Chechen line on 3:30 PM and managed to seize the entirety of the city.
Russian Troops in the Battle of Grozny.
The Chechen Military in Grozny which had initially numbered around 13,500 at the beginning of the battle had suffered 2,243 dead, 6,676 injured, and 3000 captured. The Third Battle of Grozny was a decisive victory of the Russian forces who altogether had got minimal casualties. In Around the remaining 70,000 civilians who were left in the city, around 4,000 were killed, around 12,000 injured and 8,000 missing. Due to the general infantry attacks and using tanks only for main road battles etc, had limited the civilian casualties, which was even still general high. However considering around 120,000 Grozny citizens had fled to Dagestan and the rest of Russian Caucasus, the civilian damage was light in comparison to what had happened in the previous parts of the Chechen War.
Mashkadov who was commanding the Chechen Army was captured by the Russians and he was forced to sign the Grozny Accords on behalf of the Chechen militias. The Grozny Accords signed on August 20th brought an official end to the Chechen Wars as the entirety of Chechnya was brought under Russian rule once again. The Grozny Accords was signed by Mashkadov with him as the official emissary of the Chechen government. Akhmad Kadhirov, the Mufti of Chechnya switched sides and declared himself to be off the Russian side.
Mashkadov.
Shamil Basayev commanding a small force tried to breakthrough into Grozny the next day but his entire force had been destroyed in the subsequent battle and he himself was killed when a sniper from a building a good distance away managed to sharp shoot him. This was the breaking point for the Chechens. Despite their bravado in front of the Russians, the Third Battle of Grozny was the last chance the Chechens had, and the entire war was now lost. Chechnya was now under official Russian administration. Aslan Mashkadov was kept under house arrest in St. Petersburg with an annotation to release him in 2015.
The Chechen War, had made the Russian Army and the military the laughing stock of the world, with it’s only saving grace being better coordination at the end, which led to a very successful battle at Grozny. However the Refugee Crisis of Chechnya also erupted soon after as the refugee camps were insufficient to aid the Chechen civilians and the government was forced to start a quick reconstruction program amid insurgent strikes from Chechen guerilla cells.
Meanwhile as the crisis died down officially by August 25th in mere two weeks after the election of Yavlinsky, the man’s popularity in Russia grew, along with the communists, and the last vestiges of Yeltsin’s power began to drown. Yavlinsky himself had been opposed to a military solution to Chechnya bit had seen it necessary to bring Chechnya back into the fold. However proposals for Chechen autonomy and its full privileges were brought up for the Duma and were in discussions.
On August 30th, the Duma of the Russian Federation convened to discuss a new economic plan proposed by Yavlinsky and the cabinet.
Yavlinsky in 1991 had proposed a plan named the ‘500 Day Plan’ to make the transition into the privatized economy, which had been rejected by the then president Yeltsin. A new plan called the 720 Day Plan had been proposed and was authored by Yavlisky, Andre Vavilov, Mikhail Zadarnov, Boris Fyodorov, and Yevgeny Yasin. The 720 Day Plan called for backtracking the rapid and uncontrolled privatization of the economy under Yeltsin, and the plan called for supervised, and gradual privatization. The plan also called for the GOSPLAN of the Soviet Union to be re-opened so that a good amount of industries vital to the nation would be kept under state ownership; though they would be in the minority.
The Russian Duma began the vote for the 720 program on September 1st and the plan passed with votes of 272-178. The 720 Plan would come into implementation from October 1st 1996 and end in October 1st 1998.
Meanwhile as the starting of the 720 Days Programs was being put into the foundations, on September 3rd the United States launched Operation Desert Strike against Iraq launching multiple missiles against Iraqi anti-air defenses in Southern Iraq after the Iraqi offensive during the Kurdish Civil War. Russian cabinet members reacted with slight disdain as President Yavlinsky commented that “America is only currently heightening tensions in the area without thought for the ordinary Kurdish and Iraqi people in the area.”
USS Shiloh launching a tomahawk missile during Operation Desert Strike.
Meanwhile the Duma was now starting to get ready for the 720 Days Programs where the Duma would oversee the privatization of the Russian Economy in a more planned and supervised manner. Meanwhile the Russian Oligarchs who had formed the Davos Pact including Boris Berezovsky, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Vladimir Gusinky, had supported Yeltsin in the 1996 election and having the person who had made them grow into Oligarchs had been a huge blow to them. Legally there wasn’t much Yavlinsky could do against the Oligarchs, considering official proof regarding their fraudulent crimes did not exist. However Yavlinsky was now very committed to stop any encroachment of the Russian economy from Oligarchs. In September 10th he gave the ‘Speech of Russia’ speech.
“Russia has been a glorious nation with a glorious history. We cannot allow internal corruption to tear this nation, and its healing populace to shreds for only their satisfaction and only their pockets. This nation must heal and must be able to create a better atmosphere for all, in all regards of development of the nation.”
Boris Berezovsky
Of course too basically everyone, it was clear who Yavlinsky was talking about; the Oligarchs, and most notably the Davos Trio. They suddenly found their investment funds into new private companies suddenly blocked, their legal transactions under heavy scrutiny etc. This was of course a huge blow to the Oligarchs and they continued to fund Yeltsin who by this point was still trying to make a comeback to popularity by giving speeches etc, which Yavlinsky under his ‘Free Media’ cooperative had allowed to do so, though the channels broadcasting his speeches would usually be lower on the list of channels.
However on October 1st Yavlinsky announced the starting of the 720 Days Programs without a hitch and privatization in a more orderly manner began to take place. The GOSPLAN had been opened once more in September 25th for the overseeing of the new privatization process.
Meanwhile however as the beginning of the 720 Days Program began to take place, the government of Yavlinsky also had other problems to contend with. The Total Fertility rate of the country at the time being was 1.6, which was horrendously low, and the country was in demographic decline, which in hindsight had been obvious since the early 1980s. To combat the population decline on October 15th the Duma reconvened to speak about potential measures to stop the decline of the Russian populace. The debate in the Duma lasted for days on the end until October 19th when the Duma using the aid of demographic experts brought from Europe and North America decided upon the main reasons behind the demographic decline:-
Abortion prices were also raised to discourage the people of Russia from seeking abortions. Psychiatrists were given more stress in studying sectors and veterans were sent to the Psychiatrists on compulsory routine to make them ease in a much better manner.
Meanwhile the talks between Yeltsin and Lukashenko about closer ties between the Russian Federation and the Belarusian Republic, started to become resumed as Yavlinsky was particularly interested in integrating Belarus for many reasons. First and foremost was expanding the border of Russia, second was to shorten the distance between Russia and Kalinigrad, third was to increase the population pool of the country to allow the population policies to become better rooted in the country.
The new economic policies of the Yabloko and Yavlinsky were currently bearing good amount of fruit as the public debt of the Russian Federation showed a noticeable decline by the end of the year.
Alexander Lukashenko.
Talks with Belarus over a union state was increasing as Lukashenko expressing willingness to join the Belarusian republic in the Russian state if special privileges unlike the other Russian republics were given. Talks continued and slow yet gradual privatization took place in the Russian Federation.
****
Author's Note:-
The TL runs on exactly 3 PoDs.
(1) - The 1993 Constitutional Crisis makes Yeltsin's popularity plunge even worse than OTL
(2) and (3) - The election of 1996 was rigged. This is not the case in ITTL. This makes Yavlinsky keep his second poll lead and win.
***
Chapter 1: 1996 Russian Elections
Russia and the World held their breath as on 3rd July, the results of the 1996 elections came in.
Many people today even wonder why Yeltsin even tried. Under him Russia had become the butt of all Western Country’s jokes and corruption, crime, oligarchs etc were the ones ruining Russia unchecked under Yeltsin. The 1993 Constitutional Crisis in Russia had made Yeltsin very unpopular in Russia. And the votes came in.
***
Nominee: Boris Yeltsin
Party: Independent
Home State: Moscow
Percentage of Vote: 13%
Boris Yeltsin
***
Nominee: Gennady Zyuganov
Party: Communist Party of Russia
Home State: Moscow
Percentage of Vote: 28%
Gennady Zyuganov
***
Nominee: Grigory Yavlinsky
Party: Yabloko (Social Democratic Party of Russia)
Home State: St. Petersburg
Percentage of Vote: 53%
Grigory Yavlinsky.
***
Grigory Yavlinsky won the Russian Elections of 1996 with a good lead over Yeltsin and Zyuganov. However Yeltsin considered the electoral results to be fraudulent. Considering Yavlinsky didn’t have total plurality of votes, Yavlinsky offered Zyuganov to form a coalition government between the Social Democrats and the Communists, also mainly to combat Yeltsin, who would not take this result laying down. Zyuganov initially wished to turn the offer down, however after much goading from the other members of the communist party, Zyuganov agreed and on August 9th, Grigory Yavlinsky was inaugurated as the 2nd President of the Russian Federation.
The new Cabinet of the Russian Federation was thus formed as:-
President: Grigory Yavlinsky
Prime Minister: Gennady Zyuganov
Minister of Agriculture: Vladimir Bulgak
Minister of Defense: Sergey Shoyu
Minister of Economy: Yevgeny Yasin
Minister of Education: Vladimir Fillipov
Minister of Foreign Affairs: Igor Ivanov
Minister of Internal Affairs: Anatoly Kulikov
Minister of Justice: Sergey Stephashin
Minister of Transportation: Nikolai Tsach.
Minister of Health: Yury Shevchenko
Minister of Culture: Vladimir Yegerov
Minister of Emergency Affairs: Alexander Lebed.
Meanwhile the first course of business for Yavlinsky as president was the ongoing Chechen Crisis in Chechnya. On 11th August the situation in Grozny was dire as Chechen fighters had been able to infiltrate and take control of the majority parts of the city of Grozny. Yavlinsky gave a speech in the Kremlin that day to signify his commitment to bring back Chechnya into the fold of the Russian Federation.
“The History of both Chechnya and Russia are long and glorious. However another thing that they have in common, is that Russia and Chechnya stood together. When Napoleon invaded, some of the bravest troops were Chechnya’s own people. When Hitler and the Nazis invaded, some of our best troops came from Chechnya. We have stood together for centuries, and we shall continue to do so. However we know that rapprochement shall be a hard and arduous journey. However this government is willing to provide special privileges and incentives to the people of Chechnya. We implore the people of Chechnya to see reason and to stop this bloodshed in our country.”
On August 14th the Russian General Konstantin Pullikovsky threatened a massive airstrike and ballistic missile bombardment of Grozny and was televised into the public. Yavlinsky publicly denounced Pullikovsky’s declaration and declared that no airstrikes or ballistic missile attack on Grozny would happen and that General Pullikovsky had been sacked and replaced with Alexander Lebed who was now General Lebed on duty.
General Alexander Lebed.
Lebed was ordered to bring Grozny back under Russian control and to break the Ichkerian Republic’s power there and then, whilst limiting the Civilian casualties. Lebed on August 14th gave a speech broadcast over Grozny imploring the civilians to leave the city and to enter the refugee camps that the Russian Army had hastily assembled outside of the city out of the warzones, before the Russian tanks and artillery started to attack the city. Lebed told them that the offer would stand until 11:59 PM August 18th and the fighting would resume from 12:00 AM August 19th. The end result was a massive exodus of Grozny’s populace as 2/3 of the populace managed to escape the city. The previous Russian Army’s incompetence was slightly reduced as proper coordination had allowed them to maneuver the refugees out pretty quickly and in an orderly manner.
On 12:00 AM, August 19th the Russian tanks started to fire at Chechen positions and trenches in the night as the Chechen Fighters were pushed back by the Russian firepower which far outmatched the Chechen firepower. Russian infantry soldiers managed to take control of the northern part of the city by daylight and the fighting continued in the city center and the southern portions of the city.
On 7:50 AM, the Russian T-72 tanks entered and managed to take control of R308, an important junction in Grozny. In the east, the Russian troops entered and took control of the R36 and R38 roadways leading outside of the city managing to cut off the Chechen troops cutting into Russian lines and committing guerilla actions. On 10:10 AM, the Russian troops up north managed to seize the center part of the city and take control of the eastern part of the city as well. The Chechen fighters withdrew to the southwest and committed their reserves for a final defense. The Russian tanks and armored cars managed to form an assault positioning and started to assault the Chechen defensive line on 2:15 PM. The tanks and troops quickly overran the Chechen line on 3:30 PM and managed to seize the entirety of the city.
Russian Troops in the Battle of Grozny.
The Chechen Military in Grozny which had initially numbered around 13,500 at the beginning of the battle had suffered 2,243 dead, 6,676 injured, and 3000 captured. The Third Battle of Grozny was a decisive victory of the Russian forces who altogether had got minimal casualties. In Around the remaining 70,000 civilians who were left in the city, around 4,000 were killed, around 12,000 injured and 8,000 missing. Due to the general infantry attacks and using tanks only for main road battles etc, had limited the civilian casualties, which was even still general high. However considering around 120,000 Grozny citizens had fled to Dagestan and the rest of Russian Caucasus, the civilian damage was light in comparison to what had happened in the previous parts of the Chechen War.
Mashkadov who was commanding the Chechen Army was captured by the Russians and he was forced to sign the Grozny Accords on behalf of the Chechen militias. The Grozny Accords signed on August 20th brought an official end to the Chechen Wars as the entirety of Chechnya was brought under Russian rule once again. The Grozny Accords was signed by Mashkadov with him as the official emissary of the Chechen government. Akhmad Kadhirov, the Mufti of Chechnya switched sides and declared himself to be off the Russian side.
Mashkadov.
Shamil Basayev commanding a small force tried to breakthrough into Grozny the next day but his entire force had been destroyed in the subsequent battle and he himself was killed when a sniper from a building a good distance away managed to sharp shoot him. This was the breaking point for the Chechens. Despite their bravado in front of the Russians, the Third Battle of Grozny was the last chance the Chechens had, and the entire war was now lost. Chechnya was now under official Russian administration. Aslan Mashkadov was kept under house arrest in St. Petersburg with an annotation to release him in 2015.
The Chechen War, had made the Russian Army and the military the laughing stock of the world, with it’s only saving grace being better coordination at the end, which led to a very successful battle at Grozny. However the Refugee Crisis of Chechnya also erupted soon after as the refugee camps were insufficient to aid the Chechen civilians and the government was forced to start a quick reconstruction program amid insurgent strikes from Chechen guerilla cells.
Meanwhile as the crisis died down officially by August 25th in mere two weeks after the election of Yavlinsky, the man’s popularity in Russia grew, along with the communists, and the last vestiges of Yeltsin’s power began to drown. Yavlinsky himself had been opposed to a military solution to Chechnya bit had seen it necessary to bring Chechnya back into the fold. However proposals for Chechen autonomy and its full privileges were brought up for the Duma and were in discussions.
On August 30th, the Duma of the Russian Federation convened to discuss a new economic plan proposed by Yavlinsky and the cabinet.
Yavlinsky in 1991 had proposed a plan named the ‘500 Day Plan’ to make the transition into the privatized economy, which had been rejected by the then president Yeltsin. A new plan called the 720 Day Plan had been proposed and was authored by Yavlisky, Andre Vavilov, Mikhail Zadarnov, Boris Fyodorov, and Yevgeny Yasin. The 720 Day Plan called for backtracking the rapid and uncontrolled privatization of the economy under Yeltsin, and the plan called for supervised, and gradual privatization. The plan also called for the GOSPLAN of the Soviet Union to be re-opened so that a good amount of industries vital to the nation would be kept under state ownership; though they would be in the minority.
The Russian Duma began the vote for the 720 program on September 1st and the plan passed with votes of 272-178. The 720 Plan would come into implementation from October 1st 1996 and end in October 1st 1998.
Meanwhile as the starting of the 720 Days Programs was being put into the foundations, on September 3rd the United States launched Operation Desert Strike against Iraq launching multiple missiles against Iraqi anti-air defenses in Southern Iraq after the Iraqi offensive during the Kurdish Civil War. Russian cabinet members reacted with slight disdain as President Yavlinsky commented that “America is only currently heightening tensions in the area without thought for the ordinary Kurdish and Iraqi people in the area.”
USS Shiloh launching a tomahawk missile during Operation Desert Strike.
Meanwhile the Duma was now starting to get ready for the 720 Days Programs where the Duma would oversee the privatization of the Russian Economy in a more planned and supervised manner. Meanwhile the Russian Oligarchs who had formed the Davos Pact including Boris Berezovsky, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Vladimir Gusinky, had supported Yeltsin in the 1996 election and having the person who had made them grow into Oligarchs had been a huge blow to them. Legally there wasn’t much Yavlinsky could do against the Oligarchs, considering official proof regarding their fraudulent crimes did not exist. However Yavlinsky was now very committed to stop any encroachment of the Russian economy from Oligarchs. In September 10th he gave the ‘Speech of Russia’ speech.
“Russia has been a glorious nation with a glorious history. We cannot allow internal corruption to tear this nation, and its healing populace to shreds for only their satisfaction and only their pockets. This nation must heal and must be able to create a better atmosphere for all, in all regards of development of the nation.”
Boris Berezovsky
Of course too basically everyone, it was clear who Yavlinsky was talking about; the Oligarchs, and most notably the Davos Trio. They suddenly found their investment funds into new private companies suddenly blocked, their legal transactions under heavy scrutiny etc. This was of course a huge blow to the Oligarchs and they continued to fund Yeltsin who by this point was still trying to make a comeback to popularity by giving speeches etc, which Yavlinsky under his ‘Free Media’ cooperative had allowed to do so, though the channels broadcasting his speeches would usually be lower on the list of channels.
However on October 1st Yavlinsky announced the starting of the 720 Days Programs without a hitch and privatization in a more orderly manner began to take place. The GOSPLAN had been opened once more in September 25th for the overseeing of the new privatization process.
Meanwhile however as the beginning of the 720 Days Program began to take place, the government of Yavlinsky also had other problems to contend with. The Total Fertility rate of the country at the time being was 1.6, which was horrendously low, and the country was in demographic decline, which in hindsight had been obvious since the early 1980s. To combat the population decline on October 15th the Duma reconvened to speak about potential measures to stop the decline of the Russian populace. The debate in the Duma lasted for days on the end until October 19th when the Duma using the aid of demographic experts brought from Europe and North America decided upon the main reasons behind the demographic decline:-
- The huge amount of deaths between 1925-45.
- The disuse of contraceptives etc in RSFR in the USSR which led to increased use of abortion.
- Over-alcoholism
- Poor Family Planning system
- Poor Governmental care to the Demographic situation in the country.
- De-monopolization of contraceptive industries in the Russian Federation.
- Creation of better state and private co-run Family Planning System.
- Increased tariffs on wine and alcohol production to make alcohol a weekend or once in a while food beverage. This part was hard as alcohol culture was a huge part of the Russian culture, however, with slow and steady progress, the people believed it was possible.
- Increased psychiatrist medicinal privileges in hospitals to be allowed and created in the nation, to allow the people dying through suicides, which was high in the nation, to decrease.
Abortion prices were also raised to discourage the people of Russia from seeking abortions. Psychiatrists were given more stress in studying sectors and veterans were sent to the Psychiatrists on compulsory routine to make them ease in a much better manner.
Meanwhile the talks between Yeltsin and Lukashenko about closer ties between the Russian Federation and the Belarusian Republic, started to become resumed as Yavlinsky was particularly interested in integrating Belarus for many reasons. First and foremost was expanding the border of Russia, second was to shorten the distance between Russia and Kalinigrad, third was to increase the population pool of the country to allow the population policies to become better rooted in the country.
The new economic policies of the Yabloko and Yavlinsky were currently bearing good amount of fruit as the public debt of the Russian Federation showed a noticeable decline by the end of the year.
Alexander Lukashenko.
Talks with Belarus over a union state was increasing as Lukashenko expressing willingness to join the Belarusian republic in the Russian state if special privileges unlike the other Russian republics were given. Talks continued and slow yet gradual privatization took place in the Russian Federation.
****
Author's Note:-
The TL runs on exactly 3 PoDs.
(1) - The 1993 Constitutional Crisis makes Yeltsin's popularity plunge even worse than OTL
(2) and (3) - The election of 1996 was rigged. This is not the case in ITTL. This makes Yavlinsky keep his second poll lead and win.
***
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