Key Player - Viktor Chernomyrdin

Viktor Stepanovich Chernomyrdin, a 61-year-old former gas-fitter from western Siberia, was hardly the best-equipped Russian politician for the job of special envoy to Yugoslavia. Most observers believe President Yeltsin gave it to him merely to annoy the then prime minister, Yevgeny Primakov, who was getting too big for his boots.

Up to now he has been distinguished mainly for his bumbling use of the Russian language, his grey apparatchik style and his recently-acquired immense wealth. Whatever about his language, the Russian press has frequently speculated that Mr Chernomyrdin, who has strong connections with Russia's natural gas industry, did not come by his money in an entirely moral way.

Gazprom, the company in which he came to prominence, pumps three million cubic metres of gas daily into Yugoslavia, and this gave him close links with Belgrade. His links with Washington have also been close and, it would appear, almost unbreakable.

In 1995 the Central Intelligence Agency sent Vice-President Al Gore's office a folder of documents which, it is believed, contained conclusive evidence of Mr Chernomyrdin's personal corruption. The package was returned to the CIA's headquarters in Langley, Virginia, with what the New York Times described as "a barnyard epithet" scrawled across its cover.

While details of the folder have not been released, one piece of information which did emerge suggested it cost a German businessman $1 million simply to get a meeting with Mr Chernomyrdin, when he was prime minister, to discuss trade and investment deals.

It should be said in Mr Chernomyrdin's favour, however, that he has shown himself a capable negotiator in the past. In June 1995 he stepped in, with some success, to a dangerous situation in the town of Budyonnovsk, southern Russia, where Chechen fighters had taken hundreds of civilians hostage.

His departure as prime minister last year, when he was sacked in Mr Yeltsin's usually abrupt manner, left him out in the political cold until now. He has already declared his intention of running for president of Russia when Mr Yeltsin's term ends next year, but even with his success over Kosovo, his most devoted supporters still give him little chance of winning.