TENSIONS were rising fast in Chechnya yesterday after four people were killed in bomb blasts.
The explosions provide another reminder of the Herculean task facing President Yeltsin if he is to solve the conflict in time to breathe life into his flagging re selection prospects.
The explosions happened in Grozny, where several thousand supporters of the separatist leader, Gen Dzhokhar Dudayev, were in the sixth day of an independence rally.
They are calling for the withdrawal of Russian troops and the resignation of Chechnya's Moscow backed regional government.
Last night, a potentially dangerous stand off was developing after the Russian Interior Ministry threatened to break up the demonstration.
The rally has gathered around a cluster of tents outside the ruins of Gen Dudayev's presidential palace.
The ministry's heavily armed Omon troops ringed the scene, barring the way for scores of angry Chechens who flocked there after news of the bombs spread.
It was unclear who was responsible for the blasts - there reportedly were two - but the initial response of the Russian authorities was to call it a Dudayev-inspired "provocation aimed at stirring up anti Russian hysteria". The rally and yesterday's bloodshed have increased pressure on the Yeltsin administration, which is trying to work out how to wind down the deeply unpopular war to a level at which the Kremlin can claim credit for achieving peace, in the hope that this will win votes in June's presidential election.
The President, who is expected to announce his candidacy in his home city of Yekaterinburg next Thursday, has been startlingly frank about his dilemma.
"You understand as well as anyone that a withdrawal of federal troops will spell bloodshed throughout Chechnya," he said this week, adding: "But the continued presence of the army will bury my chance to stay in office. The people will not elect me."
Mr Yell sin claims to be considering seven possible solutions to the 14 month war, which so far has claimed an estimated 30,000 lives and has heaped humiliation on the Russian army.
After a stormy meeting on Thursday, the Russian Security Council set up a committee to study the "seven solutions" in the hope of reaching what Mr Yeltsin described as a compromise.
An intriguing glimpse of the options under consideration, came yesterday when the Interfax news agency carried details of a speech by the Prime Minister, Mr Viktor Chernomyrdin, to the State Duma, the lower house of parliament.
He is reported to have said that the issue would gradually be made an "internal Chechen affair". Talks would increasingly be handled by Mr Doku Zavgayev, the Moscow backed Prime Minister.
Mr Chernomyrdin also said according to Interfax, that effort would be made to hold regional elections to a People's Assembly in the spring, by which time Russia hopes to have withdrawn all, its troops, except those stationed, there.
Last night, however, Interfax mysteriously cancelled the report, saying it had been released too soon by mistake.