PRESIDENT Yeltsin, recovering from pneumonia in hospital, has become significantly more active and is working on documents, his doctors said yesterday.
A medical bulletin said he was in a stable condition with normal blood pressure, pulse and temperature.
A Kremlin specialist, Dr Sergei Mironov, told Russian public television that Mr Yeltsin had pneumonia "of medium gravity" in both lungs. Doctors are using antibiotics to treat the condition.
The president's latest bout of ill health - just two months after multiple heart by pass surgery - has opened up a debate on whether Russia should alter its constitution to shift power from the president to the legislature.
At least one Moscow daily newspaper suggested that, because of his prolonged illnesses, it might be time for Mr Yeltsin (65), the first post Soviet president of Russia, to step down.
"Regretfully, it is obvious that the president has no strength left to attend to affairs of state properly," the liberal daily Komsomolskaya Pravda said on Saturday.