YELTSIN CANS LONG-TIME ALLY.

President Boris Yeltsin has relieved Gen. Konstantin Kobets of his duties and discharged him from military service, Kremlin press spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky said yesterday. (AP, Itar-Tass, May 20) Kobets, charged several days earlier with financial misdealings (see Monitor, May 19), had served as Russian deputy defense minister and chief military inspector. More importantly, he was a long-time ally of Yeltsin who had sided with the Russian president during the August 1991 coup.

Russian Air Force Officers on Hunger Strike.