ALTHOUGH denied by the presidential press service, a report by the independent Moscow Radio station, Ekho Mosvy, that President Yeltsin's haemoglobin levels were too low to permit the proposed coronary by-pass operation has given added impetus to a Kremlin power struggle which is getting dirtier by the minute.
With former Yeltsin associates now at each other's throats, revelations of corrupt practices in the Kremlin are being made at a furious pace.
In its main bulletin yesterday the radio station quoted sources in the Chazov medical institute, where Mr Yeltsin's operation is to be performed, as saying the President's haemoglobin count was 42 per 100, compared to an average of 78 to 96 for a person of his age, and that efforts to increase it had failed. (Haemoglobin is a protein contained in red blood cells which facilitates the transfer of oxygen to tissues.)
While denying the report, a presidential spokesman, Mr Sergei Yastrzhembsky, admitted that it contained an element of truth. "It is about 20 per cent true," he said. He said that Mr Yeltsin's operation would take place on schedule. No date for the operation has been given.
The current atmosphere of rumour and denial has been contributed to by past Kremlin statements which were patently untrue, including an announcement in July which said Mr Yeltsin had a "sore throat" when it is now known he had a heart attack.
A week ago the news magazine Itogi, which is linked to the US publication Newsweek, reported that Mr Yeltsin's left ventricle had been so severely damaged that it was pumping at 23 per cent of its normal rate.
Quoting senior medical sources as being "astonished" at the decision to go ahead with the operation, the magazine's editor, Sergei Parkhomenko, said doctors believed that a by-pass operation would not only be dangerous but would do little to improve the President's health.
As doubts about Mr Yeltsin's health continue a huge scandal has emerged which could harm the presidential ambitions of Gen Alexander Lebed, whose success in ending the war in Chechnya has sent him to the top of the popularity polls.
Generally regarded as the man with the cleanest hands in Russian politics, Gen Lebed has turned for financial support to a former KGB general, Mr Alexander Korzhakov, who has an extremely shadowy reputation.
Dismissed between the first and second rounds of the Russian presidential election, Gen Korzhakov has been accused of massive corruption including an attempt to extort $40 million from the former head of Russia's national sports foundation, Mr Boris Fyodorn, who is seen as a supporter of the Kremlin chief of staff, Mr Anatoly Chubais.
Shortly before Gen Korzhakov was sacked, Mr Fyodorov was shot and stabbed in a Moscow street. In yesterday's edition of the popular newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, Col Igor Streletsky, a Korzhakov aide, admitted to demanding $40 million but said that this was money which Mr Fyodorov had illegally taken from the sports foundation.
More than $600 million had been illegally expropriated from the foundation which had a concession to collect duties on imported alcohol and tobacco, Col Streletsky said. It is understood that the foundation does not now have enough money even to run the Kremlin Tennis Cup, an annual event inaugurated by Mr Yeltsin.
Gen Korzhakov has denied expropriating $400 million and has accused his main rival, Mr Anatoly Chubais, of causing Mr Yeltsin's ill-health by demanding too much from him in the election campaign.
To complicate matters further, the former Soviet president, Mr Mikhail Gorbachev, has said he has evidence that the wealthy Mr Chubais helped fund Gen Lebed's campaign. At present, however, Mr Chubais and Gen Lebed are ranged against each other in the struggle for power.
In the meantime the sports minister, Mr Shamil Tarpishchev, who is also Mr Yeltsin's tennis coach, has refused to accept that he has been dismissed, saying the sacking order did not bear Mr Yeltsin's signature.
The President has been one of the few Russian politicians to remain silent in a storm of sleaze allegations which has dominated the Russian news media in the past week.
The Guardian Service adds:
Scientists yesterday protested against plans to allow the military to destroy Belarusian villages contaminated by the Chernobyl disaster as part of a training exercise.
Kornzomoiskaya Pravda quoted radiologists as saying military firepower would cause fires and explosions, raising radiation levels 1,000 times above normal and spreading radioactive dust up to 40 km away.
The villages were abandoned after the 1986 disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
Belarus has long tried to find the money to destroy the buildings. The plan to have the military tire on the homes with tanks and raze the villages was first broached by the Belarus President, Mr Alexander Lukashenko in August.
Dr Victor Homich, a biologist and lawmaker heading the parliament's commission on Chernobyl, said the exercises would be dangerous. He had sent a letter to Mr Lukashenko spelling out the reasons the exercises should not be held, but has not received an answer.
