Kremlin Crunch

Min a stagnant economy and edging toward a major constitutional confrontation, Russia has now been thrust into political turmoil by a president whose mental and physical incapacities are on full public view.

President Boris N. Yeltsin, among Russia’s least popular politicians, has fired his prime minister, Yevgeny M. Primakov, who ranks among the more popular officials. This was the third time in little more than a year that Yeltsin has dismissed his chief minister.

While Primakov in his eight months in office failed to produce a coherent plan for healing Russia’s ailing economy--the ostensible reason for which he was sacked--he was able to restore a measure of stability after the upheaval produced by last August’s currency collapse. Word of his firing shook Russia’s financial community and put on deeper hold billions of dollars in vitally needed loans from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Yeltsin acted as the state Duma, the lower house of parliament, was about to start impeachment hearings based on allegations that, among other things, Yeltsin waged an illegal war in Chechnya from 1994 to 1996.

Before Primakov was fired he warned that the impeachment movement threatened political stability. The Duma, dominated by Communists and ultranationalists, is unlikely to be deterred by that concern. But impeachment could be a prolonged process. To remove Yeltsin from office requires a two-thirds vote in parliament as well as the approval of two-thirds of the judges on two reviewing courts.

Yeltsin is not without leverage against his foes. He has named Sergei V. Stepashin, head of the internal security establishment, to succeed Primakov. If the Duma refuses three times to approve a nominee, a president must call new elections within three months. Yelt- sin would govern by decree in the interim, a prospect his enemies would hardly welcome.

But Russians can’t be happy either with the prospect of an incapacitated president ruling erratically until the next scheduled presidential election, more than a year away. That is something that others as well must be concerned about.

Weakened though it may be, as badly led as it is, Russia remains a player on the world stage, as its involvement in the Kosovo conflict shows. But a Russia led by an enfeebled, muddled, unpredictable president who is in constant conflict with a reactionary and anti-Western parliament is certain to give American policymakers some sleepless nights.