‘Forceful’ Yeltsin Makes Himself Felt at Summit

Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin survived a one-day jaunt outside Russia on Sunday, walking with an unsteady gait but displaying no unsteadiness of purpose as he took his seat among the world’s most powerful statesmen.

Kremlin aides claimed a number of successes for their boss at the Group of 8 summit, including pledges from President Clinton to support forgiving some of Russia’s Soviet-era debts and tying development of a U.S. missile defense system to other arms control measures.

But after several recent illnesses and canceled foreign trips, Yeltsin’s major victory was just making it through the day.

“President Yeltsin was in good form,” said U.S. National Security Advisor Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger. “He was strong, he was forceful. His sense of humor was evident.”

So were some of his frailties. Yeltsin--who has battled heart trouble, a bleeding ulcer and nervous exhaustion in the past year--clung tightly to his wife’s hand as he made his descent from his plane, and stumbled slightly as he reached the bottom. He walked stiffly most of the day and seemed to have trouble hearing questions from reporters.

He did appear in fine spirits, however. He grinned broadly and shook hands with gusto--even swinging his arm backward over his shoulder in an awkward but playful handclasp with Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien.

For much of the time in Moscow, Yeltsin is seen only through the lens of a few Kremlin-controlled news cameras. His foreign excursions--which have grown increasingly infrequent--are among the few occasions when the Russian president’s handlers are forced to loosen their grip.

Air travel appears to take an especially heavy toll on Yeltsin. He was forced to cut short his last major trip--a tour of Central Asia in October--after he seemed to collapse during a ceremonial welcome in Uzbekistan. Aides said he had come down with bronchitis.

During a photo op Sunday, Yeltsin could be heard coughing deeply several times.

Apparently by design, the president said little within earshot of reporters, and what he did say tended to be curt. Asked what he intended to discuss during a one-on-one meeting with Clinton, Yeltsin spread his arms wide, paused and then said, “Many, many, many issues.”

He left it at that.

Altogether, Yeltsin spent only about seven hours in Cologne, and his curtailed schedule and contact with the press were ample evidence of his physical limitations. Unlike the other heads of state or government, he gave no news conference, and he let his new prime minister, Sergei V. Stepashin, stand in for him during the first two days of the summit.

By contrast, just a year ago Yeltsin made it through the full three days of a G-8 summit in Birmingham, England, and even managed to field a few questions from reporters.

Still, he made his presence in Cologne felt. Russia argued forcefully during the summit that the West has an obligation to help Yugoslavia rebuild from NATO’s air war even at the risk of indirectly helping President Slobodan Milosevic.

“We can’t punish people in Belgrade for atrocities committed by their president,” summit host Gerhard Schroeder, the German chancellor, told reporters after meeting with Yeltsin.

After a midday meeting that included all eight leaders, Yeltsin and Clinton met privately and signed a joint statement outlining a plan for further arms control efforts. Russian Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov said the agreement would link negotiations on a START III strategic nuclear arms treaty to the issue of modifying the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty to permit development of a missile defense system.

Neither Ivanov nor the White House provided details. Russia strongly opposes any changes to the ABM treaty, which outlawed national missile defense systems and is often hailed as the first and most successful U.S.-Russian arms control agreement. U.S. supporters of a missile defense system, often referred to colloquially as “Star Wars,” want to modify the treaty.

Russia also claimed to have won support from Clinton and Schroeder for forgiving at least a portion of Russia’s $69 billion of Soviet-era debt.

Schroeder told reporters that he would also push the International Monetary Fund to release a loan installment frozen after last year’s collapse.