Acting Russian Prime Minister, Mr Vladimir Putin, lobbied deputies yesterday to confirm him in his new post, and also met regional leaders to discuss the strife-ridden region of Dagestan.
After meeting top governors in the Federation Council upper chamber and leaders of the defence and interior ministries to discuss the situation, Mr Putin ruled out declaring a state of emergency in Dagestan.
Dagestan, part of the volatile North Caucasus, has been plunged into turmoil by an incursion of Islamist guerrillas backed by fighters from neighbouring rebel republic Chechnya.
Until last Monday, Mr Putin led the Federal Security Service, a successor of the Soviet KGB, where the situation in the North Caucasus was among his main concerns.
President Yeltsin was keeping a low profile yesterday, though he attended a Moscow clinic for a health check.
Mr Putin met Mr Yeltsin on Tuesday in the Kremlin and said it would take two weeks to restore order in Dagestan, where Russia faces its worst security crisis since the 1994-96 Chechen war.
Russian forces have used helicopters and jets to bomb the guerrillas in several villages and several thousand people have fled their homes.
At least 10 Russian soldiers have been killed and 27 wounded in five days of fighting there.
Mr Putin also met former prime minister, Mr Viktor Chernomyrdin, in Moscow yesterday. Interfax news agency quoted Mr Chernomyrdin as saying that his Our Home is Russia party would back Mr Putin in Monday's vote in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament.
Both Mr Putin and Mr Chernomyrdin have said they will run for president in 2000 to succeed President Yeltsin.
The flamboyant ultra-nationalist, Mr Vladimir Zhirinovsky, head of the Duma's third largest party, yesterday named his price for backing Mr Putin - the burial of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin's embalmed body and a ban on the Communist Party.
The communists, the largest group in the Duma, have indicated they would approve Mr Putin. They say they want to avoid a confrontation with President Yeltsin, who has the power to dissolve the Duma if it fails three times to approve his candidate as prime minister. By doing this, they would also keep on schedule the Duma elections due on December 19th.
Islamist separatists fighting in Dagestan proclaimed Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev their commander yesterday and vowed to drive all non-Muslims out of the republic.
Mr Basayev helped mastermind Russia's humiliating defeat at the hands of the Chechen separatists which led to the withdrawal of federal troops from this tiny republic in early 1997.