President Boris Yeltsin returns to the fray today after a tense week in domestic politics during which he made his presence felt from behind the scenes. The 66-year-old Kremlin leader will try to seal a compromise with parliament about his government's reforms. The Communist Party left what it likes to think of as a sword of Damocles hanging over Mr Yeltsin's cabinet, when it decided on Saturday not to scrap a parliamentary no-confidence vote until he has responded to its demands.
But many analysts say the party blew its best chance of getting the no-confidence motion passed when it postponed the vote last Wednesday after a telephone appeal from Mr Yeltsin, who warned he would dissolve the legislature if pushed.
Mr Yeltsin and the Prime Minister, Mr Viktor Chernomyrdin, will keep their side of the bargain by holding conciliation talks today with the head of parliament's lower chamber, Mr Gennady Seleznyov (communist), and the speaker of the upper house.
Senior officials in Ottawa say Chretien intended to press Moscow on bids by two Canadian firms to win billions of dollars of business in Russia at the talks, which will continue on an official level in the Kremlin on Monday. Mr Yeltsin is likely to face tough demands during meetings later in the week with the leaders of other former Soviet republics aimed at trying to revive the moribund Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Many presidents of Moscow's former subject states have cast doubt over the future of the CIS, resenting what they see as Russian domination.
The leaders of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan will meet Mr Yeltsin in Moscow on Wednesday, before the full summit on Thursday grouping all 12 CIS countries.
"There were great hopes, but for the time being they have not been justified," Interfax news agency quoted a unnamed top Kremlin official as saying yesterday, adding that Russia had a string of proposals to get things going.
In a sign that diplomatic relations can improve within the former Soviet Union, Mr Yeltsin is expected to sign a landmark border deal with Lithuania during a two-day official visit to Russia by President Algirdas Brazauskas starting on Thursday.
The Russian Communist Party leader, Mr Gennady Zyuganov, who has accused the government of domination of Russia's airwaves, threatened on Saturday to keep up the pressure on the leadership to win more media time and concessions on reform.
"If promises are not fulfilled we always have the chance to bring them to account," Mr Zyuganov told Russian television after a party plenum, referring to the pending no-confidence vote.
But Mr Alexander Shokhin, leader of the pro-government "Our Home is Russia" party, told Interfax that Mr Zyuganov was just trying to save face, knowing he would win little of real substance from the government, which has pledged to stick to its reforms.