HAS YELTSIN FALLEN OUT WITH BEREZOVSKY?

Reports from Moscow indicate that President Boris Yeltsin has severed his ties with influential financier Boris Berezovsky. Berezovsky, who calls himself an adviser to Yeltsin’s chief-of-staff and is to close to Yeltsin’s daughter, Tatyana Dyachenko, has boasted that he was the person responsible for persuading Yeltsin to sack Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and the rest of the cabinet. Perhaps these boasts annoyed Yeltsin. According to other reports, Yeltsin has been angered by Berezovsky’s attempts to push his own candidates for prime minister and other cabinet posts. According to two leading Russian newspapers, Yeltsin got so angry with Berezovsky’s efforts to undermine Kirienko’s candidacy that he telephoned the financier and told him that, if he did not stop, he would be deported. (Kommersant-daily, Komsomolskaya pravda, April 15)

Kirienko Orders Investigations Into Allegations of Police Brutality in Yekaterinburg.