Tension has heightened significantly in Moscow after a dramatic gunfight outside the US embassy during a protest against NATO action in Yugoslavia. Russia's NTV channel showed a videotape of the remarkable events, in which two men jumped out of a car and tried to fire at the embassy with grenade-launchers.
By 6.30 p.m., five hours after the incident, police had cleared demonstrators from in front of the embassy, and an impromptu rally was held on the other side of the road. Some demonstrators then went off to protest outside the US ambassador's residence in the Spaso House on Spasopeskovsky Lane in the Arbat area of the city.
The shoot-out between police and attackers took place immediately after the attempted grenade attack. Shots were fired at the embassy building as the attackers sped off in a white four-wheel-drive jeep. No one was injured, and three men were later arrested in connection with the attack.
Security at the embassy was extremely tight when I arrived there soon after the attack. The embassy is situated on the Sadovoye Koltso, Moscow's inner ring road, which carries eight busy traffic lanes round the city. Police quickly sealed off the pedestrian underpasses which lead to the embassy side of the ring road.
Newly-arriving demonstrators were kept on the opposite side of the road, while at the embassy itself protesters waved Serbian, Russian and Soviet flags and one group hoisted a red banner carrying the image of Che Guevara.
A large contingent of police surrounded the demonstrators at the embassy. Interior Ministry troops armed with sub-machineguns patrolled the central reservation, and on the opposite side of the road militiamen stood along the footpath at 10-metre intervals.
This reporter quickly drew a crowd of bystanders when they realised that someone from the West was present. Youths wearing Moscow Spartak football scarves chanted "Yankee go home" and an elderly man berated me about NATO's "double standards".
When I identified myself as Irish, the man, a pensioner named Nikolai Filimonov, shook my hand and said: "If there is going to be a war I can assure you that the English will be wiped out." He had come to the embassy, he said, pointing to the walls stained with paint and ink from previous demonstrations, "because I just love to look at it".
Marina Sergeyevna, also a pensioner, said: "If that is the sort of humanitarian aid they send to Yugoslavia then they can keep it. I despise them."
Only one person at the scene appeared not to support the attack on the embassy. "A sane person would not fire at the embassy," Mr Vadim Markov, an accountant in his 40s, said, shaking his head.
President Yeltsin ordered the Interior Minister, Mr Sergei Stepashin, to open an investigation into the incident, which was described as incompatible with Russia's attempts to find a solution which would end the NATO bombing raids.
Early yesterday a group of Russian politicians led by the former prime minister, Mr Yegor Gaidar, set off for Belgrade via Budapest in an attempt to organise a deal between President Slobodan Milosevic and NATO.
The group, which included two former deputy prime ministers, Mr Boris Nemtsov and Boris Fyodorov, was not an official delegation, Mr Gaidar stressed, but had the support of President Yeltsin.
It held talks in Budapest yesterday with the US envoy, Mr Richard Holbrooke, before setting out for Belgrade. Mr Gaidar told the Russian NTV channel that his delegation, which is representative of the highly-unpopular pro-Western strand of Russian politics, would also hold talks in Rome and Washington.