NEWS ANALYSIS : Premier Takes Bold Step in Tackling Crisis

“Shamil Basayev! I am at work,” the prime minister shouted into his beige telephone at the guerrilla leader holding hundreds of hostages. “I will answer for all that is happening in this country. How much time do you need to give me an answer?”

It was 2:40 a.m. To millions of Russians who watched a replay on national television, the scene marked a dramatic turn from a Kremlin policy of war in Chechnya, the start of high-level negotiations and the emergence of Viktor S. Chernomyrdin as Russia’s visible leader in its worst hostage crisis.

Stepping in for absent, aloof and bellicose Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, Chernomyrdin held at least nine phone conversations with the Chechen separatist commander--four on TV--over 36 hours leading to the release Monday of the last of 1,000 or more captives held in a hospital in southern Russia.

The 57-year-old prime minister was stern but flexible, dripping with sweat but ready to take the heat. With an eye on his political future, he acted in defiance of Russia’s defense and Interior ministers--who had backed two attempts Saturday to storm the hospital in Budennovsk--and perhaps of Yeltsin himself.

More important for Russians, Chernomyrdin did what no one had been willing or able to do before those sleepless hours early Sunday--take charge of a crisis already in its fifth day and end it without further bloodshed.

“Just this step, his readiness to assume personal responsibility for the sake of saving human lives, had been lacking in the conflict,” said Musa Muradov, a newspaper editor in Chechnya, echoing applause for Chernomyrdin throughout Russia. “This may turn out to be the first step toward real peace.”

Or it may not. The success of Chernomyrdin’s remarkable pact still depends on follow-through. The 73 surviving fighters among the militant separatists who seized Budennovsk must get back safely by bus convoy to their mountain camps in Chechnya along with 150 voluntary hostages who traded themselves Monday for unwilling captives.

And a cease-fire must hold and peace talks go forward--steps that both sides in the 6-month-old Chechen war have often tried but never fully supported or long sustained.

A backlash in the Russian army over the getaway of Basayev, especially if he strikes again, could easily destroy the processes agreed to Sunday by Chernomyrdin and the Chechens.

Any breakdown would leave the prime minister out on a limb, Kremlin watchers say, without much support from a president who doesn’t like being upstaged by subordinates. Chernomyrdin has been humiliated before.

Not consulted in advance, the prime minister distanced himself from the Russian army invasion in December to crush Chechnya’s independence drive. When the offensive bogged down in January, he stepped forward and arranged peace talks, only to see Yeltsin side with the army in undermining them.

“This seems to be a replication of what happened then, but this time Chernomyrdin acted more aggressively,” said Michael McFaul, a Moscow-based political analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

In recent years, Yeltsin has withdrawn from active governance but remains an intermittent arbiter between what is essentially two administrations--Chernomyrdin’s civilian Cabinet and the more hawkish “power ministries” of defense, Interior and security who answer directly to Yeltsin. The president likes to play the Cabinet off against the “party of war,” keeping his options open.

In typical fashion, Yeltsin disappeared during this crisis. Turning up in Halifax, Canada, with leaders of the Group of Seven industrialized nations, he sided first with the “party of war,” announcing that he and Interior Minister Viktor F. Yerin had ordered the hospital stormed. He railed against the Chechens, telling President Clinton that their separatist republic was the center of world terrorism and deserved to be crushed.

On Russian television, the juxtaposition of Yeltsin’s tirade in Canada and Chernomyrdin’s firm, businesslike peace mission in Moscow was stark.

Apparently eager for a deal before Yeltsin got home Sunday, the prime minister read his pre-dawn proposal to Basayev and said: “Get back to me in one hour, two hours, three hours. . . . Eight [o’clock] would be convenient for me. You can’t be ready? OK, let’s say 10.”

By Sunday afternoon, the outline of a deal was in place, though disputes over procedure stalled it by a day. On television Monday, Chernomyrdin got the Chechens to drop a demand to take along some hostages who didn’t want to go.

“All hostages must be left in the hospital,” he said with controlled irritation. “Shamil! Shamil! Wait a second! How can I guarantee you safe passage if you have hostages with you? I can agree only to your taking volunteers.”

Viewers heard only Chernomyrdin’s side of the conversation. After a pause, he said: “Done. It seems he has accepted my terms.”

Unlikely in any country, the televised hostage negotiations were a gripping novelty in secrecy-prone Russia. The invited cameras served some purposes: They allowed Chernomyrdin to project a tough image, helping him deflect criticism over his concessions; they made it harder for Basayev to stall or waffle.

A former Soviet industrialist, Chernomyrdin is emerging as a politician and is believed to have presidential ambitions, especially if Yeltsin decides not to run for reelection next year. Some political rivals Monday criticized the prime minister’s performance.

Former Finance Minister Boris G. Fyodorov called the televised negotiations “disgusting.” Retired Lt. Gen. Alexander I. Lebed said Russia “lost its honor” when Chernomyrdin used the words “yes, sir” in speaking to Basayev. But most of the reviews were good.

“The hostage drama raises his stature,” said Vladimir Pribylovsky, a Moscow political analyst. “The episode is far from over, but for now Chernomyrdin looks bigger than the president.”

That conclusion is not lost on Yeltsin. Since returning to Moscow, he has waffled toward the peace option, instructing aides to insist that saving the hostages was always top priority and that all moves to free them were coordinated with him.