The operation triggered outrage in Dagestan and across Russia, especially in liberal circles. Grigory Yavlinsky said, "It is time to face the fact that we are in a real civil war now in Russia. This was not a hostage crisis. It is a hopeless war, and it was started by Boris Yeltsin." Yeltsin's human-rights commissioner, Sergei Kovalev, resigned from all his posts in protest of the "cruel punitive action" and Yegor Gaidar drafted a letter calling on Yeltsin not to run in the upcoming presidential elections. In a January 19 Interfax poll, 75 percent of respondents in Moscow and Saint Petersburg thought that all the "power ministers" should resign.