GIVING every indication that he is not about to go quietly, Gen Alexander Lebed, dismissed as Russia's security chief, has announced he will set up a new political organisation.
He also predicted the "worst possible scenario" in Chechnya and said that Russia was now destined to have a "hot autumn" unless the army was paid long overdue wages. "Everybody is tired of fairy tales. It is time to pay the bills," he said.
He hinted, too, at further revelations of corruption in the Kremlin.
Laying the blame for his dismissal on the Kremlin chief of staff, Mr Anatoly Chubais, Gen Lebed said that attempts were being made to set up a "regency" during Mr Yeltsin's illness.
Earlier yesterday President Yeltsin addressed the Russian people on television to announce Gen Lebed's sacking. Looking stiff and straining to read an autocue Mr Yeltsin, who is due to have heart surgery next month, said Gen Lebed had sown disharmony in his team and had taken actions without proper consultation. He then signed the dismissal decree in front of the cameras.
The sacking was the culmination of a week of intrigue in which allegations flew between Gen Lebed and the Interior Minister, Gen Anatoly Kulikov, who is a strong opponent of the current peace agreement in Chechnya. Having swapped accusations of corruption, Gen Kulikov played his trump card by accusing Gen Lebed of forming a "Russian Legion" to take power by force.
The Prime Minister, Mr Viktor Chernomyrdin, although denying that a coup was being planned, called a meeting of security chiefs yesterday morning and then met Mr Yeltsin, who made his television broadcast early in the evening.
Police reinforcements were called into Moscow and within an hour of his sacking Gen Lebed's personal bodyguards were withdrawn and his office telephones cut off.
Earlier, security officers under Gen Lebed's command had arrested Interior Ministry agents under the control of Gen Kulikov on accusations of spying.
The end of Gen Lebed's Kremlin career is seen as a victory for what is known as Moscow's "Party of War", consisting of those opposed to the peace settlement in Chechnya.
At a press conference in the offices of the Interfax news agency in Moscow last night Gen Lebed said a pro Yeltsin media magnate, Mr Boris Berezovsky, had tried to intimidate him after the peace agreement saying: "Look what a business you have destroyed." It is generally believed in Russia that businesses were making money out of the war.
International reaction to the sacking of Gen Lebed was muted although the deutschmark showed minor losses on currency exchanges due to Germany's large scale investment in Russia.
Germany's Foreign Minister Mr Klaus Kinkel, and the US White House spokesman, Mr Mike McCurry, stressed that Mr Yeltsin behaved constitutionally in dismissing Gen Lebed, adding that it was not the policy of either government to comment on the internal matters of another state.
The Communist Party secretary, Mr Viktor Zorkaltsev, referring to a widely held belief that Gen Lebed had been given his post merely to ensure Mr Yeltsin would win the presidential elections last summer, quoted eloquently from Shakespeare's Othello, saying: "The Moor has done his duty, let him go."
The party's leader, Mr Gennady Zyuganov, defeated in the elections by Mr Yeltsin, claimed that the crisis could lead to civil war in Russia, but most observers regarded this as an inflammatory statement designed to heighten political tension.
Gen Lebed himself called on his supporters to behave peaceably but was noncommittal when asked what he would do if trouble broke out despite his pleas for calm.
Most observers feel that he will now open a campaign for the presidency either in 2000 or sooner in the event of Mr Yeltsin's death or incapacity.
