Yeltsin Admits His Reelection Depends on Chechnya Peace

President Boris N. Yeltsin acknowledged Thursday that his reelection chances depend on ending Russia’s war against separatists in Chechnya, and he gave his prime minister two weeks to develop a peace plan.

Yeltsin, who is expected next week to announce his candidacy in the June race, said that growing popular demands for peace must be weighed against the risks of a Russian troop pullout, including that of a bloody power struggle between separatists and Chechnya’s Moscow-installed leadership.

“If we withdraw the troops, carnage will start in Chechnya,” Yeltsin told reporters in the Kremlin. “If we do not withdraw the troops, there is no way I can become president [again]. The people will not elect me.

“We should find a compromise that would suit everyone, most of all the people of Chechnya,” he added.

The remarks indicate that Yeltsin, after ignoring public opposition to the war for 14 months, is listening. He sent tens of thousands of troops to oust Muslim Chechnya’s separatist government in December 1994 and pushed the offensive for much of last year despite a plunge in his approval ratings that now make him the underdog in the presidential campaign. The war, Russia’s bloodiest since the one in Afghanistan in the 1980s, has cost more than 20,000 lives.

Our Home Is Russia, the only political party to support Yeltsin’s candidacy, has called for an end to the war. So has the upper house of parliament, the Federation Council.

Yeltsin convened his Security Council on Wednesday to hear seven options for ending the war. They were not made public but were believed to range from a new military assault to a partial troop pullout.

By assigning Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin to weigh the options and return to the council with a plan, Yeltsin appeared to be turning away from more hawkish advisors for now.

Chechen leader Gen. Dzhokar M. Dudayev has reacted to the debate in Moscow by sending unarmed supporters to stage a round-the-clock peace rally in Grozny, the Chechen capital.

Surrounded by Russian troops, about 1,000 demonstrators built barricades of stones and concrete blocks Thursday, then stood their ground after dark while police officers shone car headlights into the crowd and demanded through bullhorns that everyone go home.

Later the police retreated, the Itar-Tass news agency reported.