Yeltsin Steps Up Attack on Vice President : Russia: The embattled Kremlin leader plans to remove Rutskoi from agricultural post after taking away his Mercedes.

The battle between Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin and his maverick vice president intensified Thursday as the president warned of plans to strip Alexander V. Rutskoi of his powers and privileges.

Far from admitting defeat, however, Rutskoi is “battle ready,” his spokesman, Vasily N. Titov, said.

Yeltsin told a group of democratic politicians Thursday morning that he will remove Rutskoi from his position as head of agricultural reforms. Earlier in the day, the vice president was deprived of his official Mercedes-Benz sedan and his personal physician; his squad of personal bodyguards also was reduced, Titov said.

The Russian president reiterated a point he made Wednesday, that the vice president should quit because of his opposition to Yeltsin’s reform program.

“Being a military officer, he should have had enough sense of honor to leave his post a long time ago if he disagreed with the president,” Yeltsin said in a meeting with intellectuals at the Bolshoi Theater. Rutskoi was an air force general, a pilot who won hero’s accolades during the war in Afghanistan.

Rutskoi, meanwhile, published an article in the opposition newspaper Pravda on Thursday blasting Yeltsin and his government.

“The ‘democratic reformers’ have stepped into the abyss of market economy blindfolded and have dragged the population of Russia along with them,” Rutskoi wrote. The resulting situation, he added, is “unworthy of such a great power as Russia.”

The confrontation between Yeltsin and Rutskoi reflects the split in Russian politics between aggressive reformers, like Yeltsin, who want to catapult Russia toward a market economy, and conservatives, like Rutskoi, who believe that Yeltsin’s reforms are driving the country to ruin.

The same conflict pushed Yeltsin and the conservative Congress of People’s Deputies, or Parliament, which has stymied the president’s reforms, to announce a referendum for April 25. Voters will be asked whether they trust Yeltsin, whether they support his economic reforms, whether they want early presidential elections and whether they want early elections to the Parliament.

Yeltsin announced Wednesday that he will soon sign a decree replacing the Parliament’s rules for judging the results of the referendum.

In an attempt to limit Yeltsin’s chances for success, the Parliament specified that a majority of the 106 million registered voters must approve a question for it to be valid. But Yeltsin said Thursday that he plans to issue a decree that would require that only 50% of those voting must approve a question to make it valid.

In a sign of confidence, Yeltsin said that once the referendum’s results show that the people favor him, “Times will change!”

One of his first likely targets will be Rutskoi.

Asked by a democratic ally why he puts up with Rutskoi, Yeltsin said: “Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, I will sign an order removing the vice president from his agricultural responsibilities, but in general, I consider that it’s not worth making drastic moves before the 25th of April.”

The conflict between the two top elected officials in Russia peaked late last month during a meeting of the Congress of People’s Deputies, when Rutskoi publicly denounced his chief. Yeltsin retaliated Wednesday by calling for Rutskoi to resign.

Political centrists say that in abandoning Rutskoi, Yeltsin risks alienating a large chunk of the electorate that voted for him in June of 1991 mainly because of his running mate. Rutskoi helped Yeltsin win support from reform-minded Communists and from the military. Rutskoi said he will not quit because he, too, was democratically elected; Yeltsin has no standing to push him out.

“Rutskoi came to power, not just tugged behind Yeltsin, but as a partner in a coalition that brought along a significant share of votes,” Vasily S. Lipitsky, a leader of the conservative Civic Union movement, said in response to a question on Russian television. “As a partner in a political coalition, he certainly has a full right to his own opinion and expression of his own position. It is not quite correct to compare him with the U.S. vice president.”

Yeltsin chose Rutskoi as a running mate because of his image as a centrist politician with wide appeal, but the ideological differences between the two men have resulted in frequent clashes. Rutskoi the military man is a fervent supporter of discipline, of order and a strong state; he is suspicious of the chaos spawned by Yeltsin’s reforms in the direction of a market economy.