PRESIDENT Yeltsin, asserting his authority after months of illness, ordered a complete cabinet reshuffle yesterday after bringing the reformist, Mr Anatoly Chubais, back into the government.
A presidential decree published by Mr Yeltsin's press service effectively gave the Prime Minister, Mr Viktor Chernomyrdin, and his new first deputy, Mr Chubais, a week to form a new cabinet.
It followed a state-of-the-nation speech last week in which Mr Yeltsin, accused of letting Russia drift while he recovered from heart problems, pledged to restore order, fight corruption and turn around the economy.
The decree involves a radical reorganisation of the cabinet, which currently has more than 30 ministers and numerous agencies in a hangover from the bureaucratic Soviet era.
It also appears to give Mr Chubais, brought back into the government after more than a year's absence due to his poor public image, an opportunity to shift policy back towards radical market reform.
The decree does not involve the formal resignation of the government, although it made it clear that all jobs apart from Mr Chernomyrdin's and by implication, Mr Chubais would potentially be up for grabs.
"I don't know what the President will decide but I hope to see you next time," the Foreign Minister, Mr Yevgeny Primakov, told reporters after meeting the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, who is on a 48-hour visit to the Russian capital.
Mr Yeltsin shifted Mr Chubais, a loyal ally, from his own Kremlin administration to the post of first deputy Prime Minister on Friday evening, at the start of a three-day holiday.
Kremlin sources said that the reshuffle would be "serious" and was taking so long because many people would have to be axed, moved, or otherwise accommodated. Newspapers had few clues as to who it would involve although they agreed changes were likely to focus on the economy.
The chief government spokesman, Mr lgor Shabdurasulov, told ITAR-TASS news agency that Mr Chubais would keep the job of first deputy Prime Minister.
Later yesterday Mr Yeltsin named Mr Valentin Yumashev, an aide who also helped him write his memoirs, to fill Mr Chubais' old job as head of Kremlin administration, the presidential press office said.
Mr Yumashev, a career journalist, was appointed Mr Yeltsin's aide in July 1996. He has helped the President write his two books.
The opposition Communists, who have condemned Mr Chubais' appointment, saying he destroyed Russia when he was last in government from 1991 to 1996, reacted cautiously to word of the reshuffle.
Mr Gennady Seleznyov, speaker of the Communist-dominated Duma, said that it was designed to pre-empt a demand from the chamber for the government's dismissal and that parliament should be consulted on the new positions.
The Duma has the constitutional right to approve only the prime minister and no say in individual cabinet positions.
. Mr Netanyahu yesterday defended Israel's internationally criticised plans to build Jewish housing in Arab East Jerusalem, but said disagreement did not doom the Middle East peace process.
"This kind of doomsday talk and the whole histrionic attitude towards obvious disagreement is itself not conducive to the [peace] process," Mr Netanyahu told a Moscow news conference.