PRESIDENT Boris Yeltsin described the Chechen crisis as a "bleeding wound" on the body of Russia, in a statement yesterday to mark the fifth anniversary of the failed hardline coup against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.
Mr Yeltsin, congratulating his fellow citizens on crushing the August 1991 coup, said life was difficult for many Russians in other former Soviet republics. But democracy was making headway at home and Russia's statehood had been strengthened.
"Life is still complicated for a significant number of Russians, the process of economic transformation is progressing with difficulty," the statement said.
"The Chechen crisis is a bleeding wound on Russia's body, carrying away the lives of our citizens. The fate of our countrymen elsewhere in the Commonwealth of Independent States is not easy."
Mr Gorbachev, who withdrew Soviet forces from Afghanistan, also described the war there as a "bleeding wound".
Mr Yeltsin, who returned to Moscow yesterday after a break in the lakelands of north western Russia, appeared briefly on television looking cheerful and smiling. It was his first appearance since he was inaugurated for a second term in office on August 9th, when he looked stiff and awkward.
Mr Yeltsin, while meeting several new ministers, also drew attention to what he described as Russia's victory over inflation in the years since the coup. "Inflation has been beaten," he claimed.
Russian consumer prices fell 0.1 per cent in the week to August 19th, the first time that prices have fallen since economic reforms began.
Mr Yeltsin included in his portfolio a leading communist, who both stood against him in his reelection to the Kremlin and is a close colleague of his former adversary, Mr Gennady Zyuganov.
With anger simmering in Russia's provinces over unpaid wages and broken election pledges, the decision to give a job to Mr Aman Tuleyev appears to be an effort to demonstrate that the Yeltsin government is broadbased and open to people from across the political spectrum.
Mr Tuleyev has twice run for the Russian presidency, although he dropped out of this year's race at the eleventh hour to leave the way clear for Mr Zyuganov, who eventually lost by a 13 point margin.
Russian news agencies said that Mr Tuleyev, who is from the Siberian coal mining region of Kemerovo, would be the minister responsible for relations with the Commonwealth of Independent States, the loose coalition which was created after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Mr Yeltsin also named his first woman cabinet minister, Ms Tatyana Dmitrieva. She will be in charge of health.