RUSSIANS were no wiser yesterday as to the health of their President amid conflicting reports that Mr Boris Yeltsin had been hospitalised in serious condition in Moscow and had left for a holiday in northern Russia.
Early yesterday the Moscow Echo radio station said that Mr Yeltsin, who has a history of heart trouble and who has adopted an extremely low profile in recent weeks, was hospitalised five days ago in a cardiological clinic near Moscow.
The radio, quoting "informed sources", said doctors considered Mr Yeltsin to be in a "relatively serious" state and would soon decide whether he could be operated on. But the report, which followed intense speculation in the Western press about Mr Yeltsin's health, was rejected as "utterly absurd" by the presidential spokesman, Mr Sergei Yastrzhembsky.
Mr Yastrzhembsky said that Mr Yeltsin had left for Valdai, a lake region 300 kilometres northwest of Moscow, in a helicopter, stressing that the 140 minute ride was proof enough of the President's fitness. "The very fact that the President has spent such a long time on a flight is the best denial of all the recent insinuations over the state of his health," Mr Yastrzhembsky told the independent NTV television channel.
He said the residence where Mr Yeltsin would be staying had no special medical equipment to cater for the President's supposed ailments, adding merely that he needed the clear air of the lake region to recuperate.
Fears and speculation over Mr Yeltsin's health have multiplied in recent weeks, particularly as the Russian President has apparently been forced into a back seat at a critical juncture in the Chechen crisis.
With rebels in control of much of the Chechen capital, Grozny, and a fragile truce teetering on the brink of collapse, he has failed to announce a clear policy on the 20 month conflict, leaving his trouble shooter, Gen Alexander Lebed, and his generals on the ground to pursue markedly differing approaches.
The President's only recent initiative involved ordering Gen Lebed to restore order to Grozny, but sources close to the Russian security head said it was unlikely that the President had actually signed the order, further reinforcing the impression of a power vacuum.
Mr Yeltsin (65) suffered two mild heart attacks last year, but conducted a vigorous re election campaign this year, travelling the length and breadth of the country. The campaign clearly took its toll, and he disappeared from public view in late June, reappearing in public only on August 9th when he was sworn in for a new four year term as President.
The Kremlin said that Mr Yeltsin was exhausted after months of energetic campaigning and needed a rest. It stressed that he was continuing to work and meet officials, but admitted that his workload had been cut down. But with Mr Yeltsin clearly unable to dispel rumours over his health by appearing in public, the Kremlin has been forced repeatedly to deny and denounce speculation.
On Monday, the Kremlin dismissed a report in the US weekly magazine Time which said the President was so unwell that he might have to go to Switzerland for heart surgery. Without quoting sources, Time said it had obtained a copy of a medical report issued Just before the Russian presidential elections which called for "urgent measures" to improve Mr Yeltsin's health.
The popular German daily Bild reported last week that Mr Yeltsin could have a heart transplant, while Time suggested double bypass surgery was on the cards because the President's heart was constricted by blocked arteries.
The Kremlin said the medical report referred to by Time was a fake. "Such reports are part of the alarmist campaigns on the President's health that periodically surface," Mr Yastrzhembsky said.
The popular Russian daily Moskovsky Komsomolets said yesterday it was "very unfortunate"
that, even alter having voted, the country was not sure about the future of its leader.