RUSSIA'96: THE PEOPLE CHOOSE

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Unfortunately for Yeltsin, his most important military adventure, the war in Chechnya, has been a disaster, and it is not viewed as a heroic defense of the Fatherland. At this point, the best the campaign can hope to do is neutralize the issue. "We'll settle for appearing serious about reaching an accommodation," says Satarov. "We want the country to understand this is not the kind of illness that can be treated quickly, but the President must be seen to be working the problem vigorously." It is all part of the larger theme, "Yeltsin is trying." Last week he ordered the country's army to abolish conscription by 2000 and, effective immediately, decreed that only soldiers who volunteer to go should be sent to battle zones such as Chechnya.

The Chechnya strategy also seems to have included killing the charismatic rebel leader, Jokhar Dudayev, a feat that was accomplished on April 21 when Russian electronic-warfare experts reportedly zeroed in on Dudayev's satellite phone and called in air strikes. Satarov won't directly confirm that the killing was timed to aid Yeltsin's campaign, but he gleefully acknowledges that "it wins votes for us." He also admits the Yeltsin campaign high command "discussed all this in advance" and knew when the killing would be attempted. He does, however, lament that "we haven't turned Dudayev's death to our complete advantage yet." That is why Yeltsin is planning to visit Chechnya soon, perhaps as early as this week; he wants to emphasize his readiness for talks.

To reach the second round, and to win, Yeltsin must unite the democratic opposition to Zyuganov, or at least dull its threat to his own candidacy. One often hears of an imminent deal in which Yeltsin's leading non-Communist opponents, Grigori Yavlinsky and Alexander Lebed, will drop their campaigns. Last week, though, Yeltsin and Yavlinsky had a public spat as talks about joining forces hit a bump. "He wants too much," said Yeltsin, at first referring to Yavlinsky's demands that he fire much of his Cabinet, but later the President decided he could "accept" many of them.

Yeltsin's aides have floated polls showing him far ahead of those men, but not far enough to forestall the possibility of Zyuganov's winning a majority in the first round. "None of those polls are accurate," concedes a Yeltsin adviser. "We have put them out to influence Yavlinsky and Lebed. They may still decide to continue their own campaigns, but we're confident now that at least they won't combine into a third-force coalition that could knock the President out of the box in the June 16 first round of voting."

Another irritant is Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the ultranationalist whose appeal has consistently defied expectations. "But we're really not fighting hard to win this time," says Alexei Mitrofanov, a key Zhirinovsky aide. "The country isn't ready. The goal now is to grow like a cancer, to build our party at the grass roots and make Zhirinovsky more acceptable to the mainstream. Then, in five or 10 years, he could burst through."