FORMER YELTSIN AIDE DIES.

Nikolai Yegorov, 45, the man who headed Boris Yeltsin’s presidential administration from January to July 1996 (when he was replaced by Anatoly Chubais) died over the weekend. As Minister of Nationalities and Yeltsin’s adviser on ethnic affairs in 1994-95, Yegorov was a member of the "party of war" that encouraged Yeltsin to launch the December 1994 invasion of Chechnya. Yegorov, who claimed Cossack descent, was a one-time collective farm manager who rose through the ranks of the Komsomol and Soviet Communist Party in Stavropol and Krasnodar until, in 1991, he was appointed deputy head and in December 1992 head of administration in Krasnodar krai. He returned to Krasnodar as governor after his Kremlin ouster last summer, but was forced to leave office when he failed to win reelection last December. He is said to have died "after a long illness."

Data Show CIS Economic Recovery Spreading.