Is Yeltsin suicidal?

Yeltsin made another attempt on his life two years later, when he locked himself in his sauna and Korzhakov had to break down the door. Yeltsin described this incident in the second of two autobiographies, The View From the Kremlin, saying laconically that he suffered from 8220;dark thoughts8221;. No one at the time realised the significance of this phrase.

Korzhakov, now a deputy with parliamentary immunity from prosecution, refused to go into details. 8220;This is a very personal matter. The sauna was one of the episodes, and then how would you describe the case with the bridge? This is the first enigma, but let us leave this subject without making sensations.8221;

Critics are likely to characterise Korzhakov8217;s statements as an act of revenge after losing a court case he brought against the President for unfair dismissal. They will also accuse Korzhakov of drumming up publicity for a forthcoming book, in which he is expected to make more sensational assertions.

Korzhakov, sacked in a Kremlin putsch last year, was the closest man to Yeltsin for 11 years. He paints a devastating portrait of the declining mental and physical state of the man he likens to Leonid Brezhnev in his declining years. Korzhakov confirmed previous reports that Yeltsin had suffered a series of strokes and heart attacks.

Asked how much Yeltsin could understand of the complex international treaties he was signing, Korzhakov replied: 8220;Before, he understood the details, but maybe the last three or four years he understood less and less. This began, unhappily, after the first heart attack.8221;

He described Yeltsin as a 8220;helpless, quivering old man8221; who had forgotten about Russia and whose only thought was to protect the interests of his family clan.

8220;Yeltsin began to consider the most important thing was not the interests of State, but the interests of the family8217; clan, and I speak about this clan in a broad sense. This clan is leading the country over a precipice, and society towards conflict.8221;

Korzhakov gave as an example of the clan8217;s power Yeltsin8217;s recent declaration that he owned one BMW and a modest dacha. Korzhakov commented: 8220;It is ridiculous to read these declarations, when the BMW was really bought for the price of a Zaparozhets the cheapest car in Russia. The declaration is a trap. He can8217;t show what his property is really worth. Let8217;s take the jewellery of his wife Naina, or the real quantity of his cars. He can8217;t show anything. Why do this at all?8221;

Even when Yeltsin was relatively alert and fit, his capacity for fantasising earned him the nickname in the Kremlin bodyguard service of Ole Lukoye8217;, an evil dwarf with an inexhaustible imagination, described by Hans Christian Andersen.

This tendency, if Korzhakov is to be believed, explains many bizarre public statements Yeltsin has made, which earned him ridicule at home. The latest was when Yeltsin stunned arms control experts by announcing at the Paris NATO conference that he would disarm the warheads of all missiles pointing at NATO members.

The Kremlin spin-doctors had to work overtime to say that the President meant detargeting, not disarming, but even this was supposed to have happened years ago. There were other bizarre statements, such as Yeltsin8217;s claim that his family planted and dug their own potatoes, or the boast that Chechen hostage-takers in a Dagestan border village of Pervomaskaya were pinned down by 38 snipers.

8220;We called the president Ole Lukoye8217;. The fantasies of the President went so far that we later had to correct them, like the tale of the 38 snipers, and the saga of the potatoes he was planting8230;eight sacks a year, which he planted, collected and then ate for the whole year.8221;

Ironically, Yeltsin himself predicted the mental incapacity that he is now suffering from: 8220;Yeltsin told me many times that he thinks that the age limit for a politician is 65 and after that he falls into a marasmus a state of emaciation and wasting. These are his words,8221; Korzhakov said.The Observer News Service