Yeltsin Seeks Middle Course with NATO

delicate and difficult," he said in an address to military chiefs. "We will not confront NATO directly, but we will not flirt with them either." Western military intervention in Yugoslavia this year, which Russia bitterly opposed, sparked the fiercest dispute between Moscow and Washington since the Cold War. After intense and often bitter diplomacy Russia is now moving troops into Kosovo to join NATO peacekeepers in the troubled Yugoslav province. But the cooperation follows months of angry words and confrontational gestures. Yeltsin also praised the military, and said politicians had unfairly maligned the state of Russia‘s readiness. The armed forces "can defend Russia. Let the whole world know this and not say that our army has fallen apart. To use a not-so-literary term, that is nothing but a pack of lies," he said. He also praised law enforcement agencies for their handling of violence near the breakaway Chechnya region. "The bandits who have terrorised the population have begun to feel an appropriate response," he said. But he warned the generals: "Do not bring this to a war". Russia withdrew its troops from Chechnya after a disastrous 1994-96 war, but the region and neighbouring areas remain unstable. This week Moscow launched what it called "pre-emptive" cross-border air strikes against armed groups in the breakaway region, and promised more such strikes.