President Yeltsin made a gesture of goodwill towards the former Soviet Baltic states yesterday, offering to cut Russian troop numbers in the region and to give his neighbours access to military sites.
However, his Foreign Minister, Mr Yevgeny Primakov, accompanying the Kremlin leader on the second day of a three-day state visit to Sweden, reminded the Baltic leaders of Moscow's demand for better treatment for their large Russian-speaking minorities and its bitter opposition to their aspirations to join NATO.
Mr Yeltsin, speaking of his hopes for the Baltic region to become a bridge between East and West within the post-Cold War Europe, said Russia would cut land and naval forces by 40 per cent. Mr Primakov later clarified that remark as referring only to the north-western region.
Mr Yeltsin also called for building a "regime of trust" around the Baltic that would contribute to broader European security. He offered the Baltics a military hotline to Russia's highly militarised Kaliningrad enclave and a range of joint activity including opening Russian bases to inspection.
Russia has been seeking Swedish support for an initiative launched in October to forge new ties with the Baltic region and especially with Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, which have kept Moscow at arm's length since recovering their independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Mr Yeltsin had offered a "defence guarantee" to the three, but this was rejected.
During Mr Yeltsin's visit to Stockholm, Kremlin officials have stressed that Russia is interested in broader regional ties, including economic and environmental co-operation. That has been more favourably received by neutral Sweden, which has ruled out any special pact in the Baltic.
Mr Yeltsin's surprise announcements of major policy changes, including sweeping nuclear arms cuts, are becoming a headache for diplomats and a source of anguish for his policy advisers. He dropped a bombshell on Tuesday when he told a press conference in Stockholm that Russia would reduce its nuclear arsenal by a third in an apparent confusion over START III talks with the US, forcing an embarrassed spokesman to make a diplomatic denial.
Russian and other ministers and diplomats were at pains yesterday to give an explanation similar to Mr Yeltsin's spokesman, Mr Sergei Yastrzhembsky's. Questioned by a Russian journalist on what to make of the President's "inadequate" behaviour, the spokesman suggested the leader "may have been tired" after "energetic talks" with the Swedish Prime Minister, Mr Goeran Persson.
The Russian Defence Minister, Mr Igor Sergeyev, said at NATO headquarters in Brussels that Mr Yeltsin had been referring to prospective cuts "on a parity basis" under a third stage of strategic arms reductions (START III). Russia's parliament has yet to ratify START II.
Russian parliamentary deputies attribute Mr Yeltsin's shock statements to a liking of surprise moves and seducing his worldwide audience.
"These statements are just like what the president always does," the Communist deputy, Mr Vasily Shandybin, said. "He speaks first and will then think about what he just said."