Russian leaders and the opposition-dominated parliament united yesterday in opposition to any international military action against Serbia over its handling of the Kosovo crisis.
A spokesman for the President, Mr Yeltsin, said the Kremlin was committed to a political settlement of the crisis, and Mr Yeltsin later spelled out his position in a telephone conversation with the Finnish President, Mr Martti Aht isaari.
Russian news agencies said the Prime Minister, Mr Yevgeny Primakov, had told the Italian Prime Minister, Mr Romano Prodi, by telephone there was no case for NATO airstrikes. Any use of force would first have to be approved by the United Nations, Mr Primakov said.
Russia's State Duma, the lower house of parliament, passed a resolution opposing force against Serbia and said it would review relations with NATO if the Western defence alliance went ahead with its threat of airstrikes.
"Any military action against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia without a decision by the UN Security Council is seen by the State Duma as an act of unlawful aggression," the resolution said.
"Use of force against Yugoslavia could lead not only to a review the whole complex of agreements and accords between Russia and NATO but would be an irreparable blow to the system of maintaining international security upheld in the UN charter."
A total of 359 of the 450 Duma deputies voted for the resolution, with none voting against and no abstentions.
Mr Gennady Seleznyov, speaker of the Communist-led Duma, has said it will seek to revoke the Founding Act Russia signed with NATO in May last year to improve co-operation between the former Cold War foes, if NATO intervenes militarily in Serbia.
But the Duma's room for manoeuvre is limited because the act, signed by President Clinton and Mr Yeltsin, was designed to be brought in without ratification by the countries' legislatures.
Russian leaders, who value ties with fellow-Orthodox Christian Serbs in Belgrade, have regularly suggested Moscow would veto any UN Security Council resolution on airstrikes.
In Helsinki, the Finnish presidential press office said Mr Yeltsin and Mr Ahtisaari talked over the phone about Kosovo.
"President Yeltsin stressed the importance of a negotiated solution in the Kosovo crisis," it said in a statement.
Albania's new Prime Minister, Mr Pandeli Majko, said yesterday his country would soon announce a "new step", along with NATO and the world community, on the crisis in the neighbouring Serbian province of Kosovo.
"Very soon we are going to announce a new step which the government will undertake together with NATO and international institutions to respond to the massacres in Kosovo," Mr Majko said.
Mr Majko, who spoke to reporters immediately after the President, Mr Rexhep Meidani, approved his five-party coalition government, did not elaborate on what the step would be.
Describing the situation in Kosovo as dramatic, Mr Majko reaffirmed that his socialist-led government's stance would be to continue fostering contacts with international bodies involved in ending the crisis.
He said foreign policy would not differ much from that of his predecessor, fellow Socialist Mr Fatos Nano, who resigned four days ago because he could not form a cabinet.
More than 20,000 refugees from Kosovo have fled to Albania to escape the fierce fighting between Serbian security forces and separatist guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Mr Nano, who wanted Kosovo to become a third republic of the Yugoslav Federation, Serbia and Montenegro but did not back independence for the province, had repeatedly asked for NATO troops to be deployed in Albania.
