YELTSIN SACKS TOP SECURITY OFFICIALS.

President Boris Yeltsin has dismissed his personal security chief Aleksandr Korzhakov, the chief of the Federal Security Service (successor to the KGB) Mikhail Barsukov, and First Deputy Prime Minister Oleg Soskovets following an overnight incident in which two members of Yeltsin’s election team were briefly detained by security officers. (Reuters, June 20) The two men — Sergei Lisovsky (a showbusiness magnate who masterminded the "Vote or You’ll Lose" publicity campaign aimed at getting young people to vote) and Arkady Yevstafyev, an aide to former first deputy premier Anatoly Chubais — were seized in the Russian White House by armed men who identified themselves as members of the Federal Security Service. Aleksandr Lebed, appointed by Yeltsin on Monday to head Russia’s powerful Security Council, said the arrests were part of an attempt to derail the second round of the presidential elections. Lebed called the incident a "mutiny." Observers had predicted a clash between Lebed and Korzhakov, but no-one expected it would come so quickly or that Yeltsin would part so readily with Korzhakov, who has been his drinking companion and closest associate ever since the 1980s, when Yeltsin was a member of the Communist party Politburo.

Battle over Election Date.