William J. Clinton Presidential Library has made public a number of documents relating to Russian-American relations.
Among the declassified documents there are scripts of phone conversations of the then US and Russian leaders. As it appears from them, on 8 September 1999, Boris Yeltsin told Bill Clinton about his successor. According to him, it was not an easy task to find such a man.
Clinton answered that he was looking forward to meeting with Putin and remembered their good relationship.
A month later, during another interview, Yeltsin again said that Putin would become President and called him ‘democrat who knows the West’.
Delivering his New Year speech on December 31, Yeltsin announced his stepping down from the presidency. He stressed that the country had a ‘strong person who deserves to be President’. On the same day Putin became acting president of Russia.
ГА, belsat.eu
