A Government investigation yesterday confirmed that human remains found in Yekaterinburg were those of Russia's last tsar, Nicholas II, and his family, executed by the Bolsheviks in 1918.
Forensic experts "have totally confirmed the results of the inquiry of 1993", which had identified the remains as those of the imperial family, the head of the Russian forensic team, Mr Sergei Abramov, said.
The findings will be handed over on Friday to a government commission which is to recommend a final resting place for the remains to President Yeltsin.
The commission's conclusions are designed to resolve doubts over the authenticity of the imperial family's remains, which has been a source of intense debate within the Orthodox Church and the Russian emigre community.
The inquiry formally identified the Yekaterinburg remains as those of the Tsar, Nicholas II; the Tsarina, Alexandra Fedorovna; their three daughters, Olga, Tatyana and Anastasia; their doctor; two servants; and a cook.
The imperial family was executed on July 17th, 1918, by Bolshevik troops, who then hastily buried the remains in an unmarked common grave after trying to make their bodies unidentifiable.
The remains of the tsar's son and heir, Alexei, and the royal couple's fourth daughter, Maria, were not buried with the others, as their bodies were burned and disposed of separately.
Local history experts traced the remains in 1979 but only revealed their discovery in 1991.
The governor of Yekaterinburg, Mr Eduard Rossel, said he wanted a church built on the execution site where the last Romanovs to rule Russia could be buried.
However, St Petersburg, traditional resting place of the Romanov dynasty, and Moscow, another royal burial ground, are vying for the right to provide a final resting place for the remains.
The commission also found that statements by those who took part in the execution largely coincided with the findings of a 1918 inquiry by a White Russian expert, Mr Nikolai Sokolov.
Although there were some discrepancies between the witness statements, "as lawyers know, an absolute concordance in witness statements only ever happens when people collude to lie," said Mr Vladimir Solovev, chief inspector of the Russian Public Prosecutor's Office.