PRESIDENT Yeltsin has put a brave face on the prospect of undergoing heart surgery at the end of the month, but the minds of Kremlin insiders are already focused on who will take his place.
Having dropped out of sight in July, Mr Yeltsin ended months of speculation on the issue of his failing health to tell Russians on Thursday that he had decided to have the operation, which doctors later said would be a by pass.
"Passive work has never suited me," Mr Yeltsin (65) said in a rare television interview. "Nor can it suit me now. That's why an operation and full recovery, as they promise is better for me than passive activity, passive work."
The German Chancellor, Dr Helmut Kohl, who visited the Kremlin leader at his hunting lodge outside Moscow on Saturday, said Mr Yeltsin was "very optimistic" about the surgery, which comes just two months into his second term.
Interfax news agency said Mr Yeltsin had bagged more than 40 duck and a hefty wild boar during the past week, adding to the impression of vigour evident from the television pictures of a relaxed looking President strolling with Dr Kohl.
Troops began their first withdrawals from Chechnya yesterday under a peace deal meant to resolve the biggest problem of Mr Yeltsin's rule.
Cheerful military music accompanied a withdrawal ceremony from a Russian base near the Chechen capital, Grozny. But the atmosphere was muted by the army's humiliation during 21 months of inconclusive warfare in which tens of thousands have died.