A RADIO station has quoted a senior Kremlin source as saying President Yeltsin would leave hospital tomorrow. But the Kremlin gave no news on the president's condition.
Ekho Moskvy radio said he would then go to one of his residences near Moscow to convalesce from double pneumonia.
It added that doctors were advising Mr Yeltsin to cancel a visit to the Netherlands due on February 4th. It would be his first foreign trip since he was re elected last July.
The 65 year old leader has not been seen in public since entering hospital on January 8th.
His press secretary said Mr Yeltsin's improving health meant he would probably meet the Prime Minister, Mr Viktor Chernomyrdin, this week.
Ekho Moskvy said Mr Yeltsin wanted to go to the Netherlands, despite his doctors' advice.
Reports suggest Mr Yeltsin is frustrated that he has not been able to return to work at full strength after his heart surgery, especially because Russia faces a host of problems, ranging from an epidemic of unpaid wages and pensions to rising tensions in Chechnya and responding to NATO's plans to expand eastwards.
Some analysts say the administrative machine is functioning smoothly in the president's absence. But Mr Yeltsin's communist opponents in parliament and some would be successors, such as former security adviser Gen Alexander Lebed, say Russia is rudderless and have urged the president to step down.
In Chechnya, self declared president Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev accused the Kremlin of trying to sabotage the region's elections on January 27th, previously agreed to by Moscow, which he hopes will give him a popular mandate to press for full independence.
The NATO Secretary General, Mr Javier Solana, arrived in Russia yesterday with a package of measures aimed at softening the blow of NATO's planned expansion into eastern Europe, including a pledge of a permanent consultative forum between the two former foes.
. Russian authorities restarted a nuclear reactor at a Siberian chemical plant yesterday, one day after it was shut down because of a malfunction. The reactor was shut down after a drop in the cold water supply to its cooling system, forcing Seversk and nearby to Tomsk to switch to emergency heating systems.
Tass' quoted the regional deputy governor, Mr Yusup Galyamov, as saying there had been no radiation leak and that the reactor was expected to reach its normal capacity today.