Russian Prime Minister Kirienko has been fired together with the entire Russian government, amid concerns that Monday will bring the collapse of Russian financial structures.
Viktor Chernomyrdin has been appointed in his place, in what is probably the last act in Yeltsin's long-running game of musical-chairs.
Informed opinion has it that Chernomyrdin is a busted flush: he was sacked three months ago for incompetence in pursuing 'market reforms'.
Why, then, has this triple-bypass, bigtime Cote d'Azur property-holder and mafia-supremo, been brought back from the political dead?
Perhaps because of a constitutional peculiarity: If Yeltsin dies or flees Russia, then according to the Russian constitution' the prime minister automatically assumes full power.
But the oligarchs who own Russia - let alone the dispossessed masses -- will not accept Sergei Vladilenovich Kirienko, the 35-year old Scientologist and oil millionaire as their leader.
So the short straw has fallen to the dollar billionaire Chernomyrdin (a man whose Soviet salary was 500 roubles a month).
Chernomyrdin has been given the task of turning out the lights -- but by whom?
That is the real question tonight in Moscow, which is full of rumours that Yeltsin has already died of a 'heart attack'.
Mark Jones