Lawmakers in Russia Lash Out at Premier : Parliament: Lower house votes ‘no confidence’ in government. Deputies are angered by Kremlin’s handling of Chechen terrorist attack.

The Kremlin’s bow to Chechen commandos to win freedom for more than 1,000 hostages exacted a political toll Wednesday when deputies of the lower house of the Russian Parliament voted “no confidence” in the government over its handling of the crisis.

After the gunmen who had waged a fatal rampage escaped into the sheltering hills of Chechnya, parliamentary deputies of all political walks directed their hunt for scapegoats at Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin, despite his success in bringing the incident that had earlier taken 100 lives to a bloodless conclusion.

Deputies of the Duma voted 244 to 72 to proclaim a lack of faith in Chernomyrdin’s ability to protect citizens from the violence convulsing Russia.

The deeply divided lower house failed, however, to muster enough votes for a similar reprimand of Defense Minister Pavel S. Grachev, Interior Minister Viktor F. Yerin and national security forces chief Sergei V. Stepashin--the “power ministers” responsible for ensuring public safety.

President Boris N. Yeltsin, himself the target of withering criticism for a feeble response to the hostage incident, indicated through his spokesman that he would ignore the parliamentary appeal to sack Chernomyrdin and his Cabinet. “The president has no grounds for mistrusting the government,” Yeltsin’s press secretary, Sergei K. Medvedev, told journalists after the no-confidence vote.

Under the Russian constitution, the president is under no obligation to react to such a vote unless the deputies repeat their action within three months. After a second vote of no-confidence, the president must either fire the Cabinet or dismiss the Parliament and call new elections.

An official with Moscow’s Presidential Analytic Center said Yeltsin is more inclined to get rid of the fractious Duma than abandon Chernomyrdin, whose “Our Home Is Russia” political bloc would probably back a reelection bid by Yeltsin. “I am sure the president would more willingly part with the Duma than with the government,” said analyst Viktor I. Borisyuk, denouncing the vote as an obvious attempt by opposition figures to get political mileage out of the crisis.

Chernomyrdin attempted to defend his decision to cut a deal with the hostage-takers, reminding Duma deputies before they voted that “not a single person died during the negotiations” he undertook with Chechen guerrilla leader Shamil Basayev after heavily armed fighters attacked the southern Russian town of Budennovsk on June 14.

The gunmen executed Russian men in uniform and herded more than 1,000 hostages into a hospital to use as human shields and bargaining chips to get the Kremlin to call off its war against secessionist Chechnya. Once Chernomyrdin agreed Sunday to peace talks and a temporary cease-fire, the killing stopped.

But the prime minister’s claim that he had dealt with the terrorist incident as he did out of concern for the lives of the captives went unheeded. Only two small reformist factions in the Duma backed Chernomyrdin, boding ill for the chances of his Cabinet surviving a second no-confidence vote.

While the Duma demand for a new government served a mostly symbolic purpose, it reflected the widespread disenchantment of Russians with the current leadership they blame for growing poverty and lawlessness.

Freed hostages who returned to Budennovsk rallied to express their anger against the leadership, demanding the immediate resignation of the president, government and Parliament.

“The tragic events in Budennovsk . . . were the result of the inept policy pursued by the president, government and the power ministers,” the shaken former captives declared in a statement sent to Moscow. They denounced the Kremlin’s handling of the crisis as “a humiliation for the population of the town and Russian citizens in general.”

Yeltsin’s popularity has never been lower, with less than 10% of the Russian electorate now willing to back him. His hands-off role in the hostage crisis probably cut another gash in what was left of his approval rating, especially his decision to attend a summit of leaders of industrialized nations in Halifax, Canada. There he clowned with children upon arrival and delivered an incoherent harangue against Chechen rebels during his meeting with President Clinton.