In December 1994, Yeltsin ordered the military invasion of Chechnya in an attempt to restore Moscow's control over the republic. Nearly two years later Yeltsin withdrew federal forces from the devastated Chechnya under a 1996 peace agreement brokered by Alexander Lebed, then Yeltsin's security chief. The peace deal allowed Chechnya greater autonomy but not full independence.[citation needed]
The decision to launch the war in Chechnya dismayed many in the West. TIME magazine wrote:
"Then, what was to be made of Boris Yeltsin? Clearly he could no longer be regarded as the democratic hero of Western myth. But had he become an old- style communist boss, turning his back on the democratic reformers he once championed and throwing in his lot with militarists and ultranationalists? Or was he a befuddled, out-of-touch chief being manipulated, knowingly or unwittingly, by– well, by whom exactly? If there was to be a dictatorial coup, would Yeltsin be its victim or its leader?"[34]