THE DUMA BACKS DOWN

"Under the Russian Constitution," saysTIME's J.F.O. McAllister, "the President has a lot of trump cards to play." Mindful ofBoris Yeltsin's constitutional clout, the Russian parliament has dropped its push to begin impeachment proceedings against him. Instead, they called on Yeltsin to dismiss his "power ministers" (those responsible for the army and security forces) for their mishandling of the war in Chechnya. Yeltsin may get rid of the ministers as the price of winning a vote of confidence scheduled for July 1. If it works, he can head off a crisis in which he would either have todismiss his entire cabinet or disband parliament. "Yeltsin doesn't much care for these guys anyway," says McAllister. "And dismissing them may be a safer route than disbanding the parliament, since he doesn't have any idea how elections would turn out on such short notice."