The Redoubtable Boris Yeltsin, One of Russia's Great(est) Leaders of All Time - Disparaging 'Trendy Leftie' Western Pundits and Commentators Notwithstanding - Bequeathed to Our Present World a Frankenstein(ian) Monster of a 'Gift' in His Anointing of Vladimir Putin as His Successor (to Subsequently Reign Over the Russian People)...

But this great defender of freedom and liberty, whose courage knew no bounds and saw him face down the barrel of a Soviet tank in a show of 'blinkmanship' that saw him lionized throughout the world (and doubtless Russia and the USSR's then 15 component republics prior to their wholesale splintering off), was evidently also naive to a fault (or more likely taken in a by an all too adept and cunning, subtle and sophisticated master of intrigue and dissimulation)...

...and the rest is history, as they say...