Boris Yeltsin during the presidential election campaign in 1996
© Alexander Chumichev/TASS
“It happened on June 26. …Came from work to the cottage about 17 hours. The day was tense, heavy. I walked down the hall a few steps. Sat in the chair.
And suddenly a very strange feeling – as if you took under the arms and carried. Someone big and strong. Pain was not this otherworldly fear…
And immediately embedded pain. Huge, huge pain” – so Boris Yeltsin recalled the heart attack that happened to him a few days before the second round of the presidential elections of 1996.
The following months turned into a medical detective, which successfully ended on 5 November, a complex heart surgery. Publicly the doctors talked about a 2% risk, but after the operation, acknowledged the chances of a positive outcome was 50 to 50.