HINT OF LIFTING SANCTIONS; NEW CALL FOR ARMS.

Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin said on Russian TV that Moscow may unilaterally abandon the economic sanctions against rump Yugoslavia if NATO military action in Bosnia continues. (2) Communist Party Duma deputy Vitaly Sevastyanov, the veteran cosmonaut, called for Russia to deliver anti-aircraft missiles to Serbs, as "NATO planes must be shot down in order to prevent American bombing of the Serbs." He said that the U.S. would be unable to mount a Desert Storm-type operation "if the Serbs shoot down a dozen NATO planes." Sevastyanov spoke at a press conference following a solidarity visit to Serbia and the Bosnia and Krajina Serbs by a group of Duma deputies. The delegation was the first of three scheduled visits by Duma members. The second group, headed by the Duma’s foreign affairs committee chairman Vladimir Lukin (Yabloko) is now in that area. (3) Yeltsin has vetoed the Duma’s bills on a unilateral Russian repudiation of the sanctions but has reserved the exercise of that option depending on Western actions. The Chernomyrdin government has actively prepared to resume trade with rump-Yugoslavia in the post-sanctions period. Explicit calls for arming the Serbs remain confined to the hardline fringe, although allusions to that possibility have issued from Yeltsin and Grachev.

Assassination Attempt in Chechnya Fails.