Moscow - Just as his comeback from illness and infighting appeared to be complete, President Yeltsin has suffered the most serious political defeat of his presidential career, writes Seamus Martin. By once again refusing Mr Yeltsin's request to fire the country's Prosecutor-General, Mr Yuri Skuratov, the Senate (Federation Council), has dealt the President such a crushing blow that newspapers are claiming Russia is now a parliamentary republic rather than a presidential one.
The respected Izvestia daily wrote that the major political decisions in Russia were now "not being taken from behind the Kremlin walls". The business daily Kommersant said the Senate had "spat in the President's face", while Nezavisimaya Gazeta, owned by the sinister businessman, Mr Boris Berezovsky, wrote that the decision had given a major boost to Russia's communists ahead of December's parliamentary elections.
The liberal Segodnya newspaper hinted that the next victim of Mr Yeltsin's wrath over the Skuratov affair could be the Prime Minister, Mr Yevgeny Primakov, who addressed the Senate on Mr Yeltsin's behalf before the vote was taken, but failed the persuade the lawmakers to fire the Prosecutor-General.
Mr Yeltsin has been hinting for some time that Mr Primakov might be fired and his appointment of the former prime minister, Mr Viktor Chernomyrdin, to act for Russia on the Yugoslav war has been seen as a serious diminution of Mr Primakov's powers.