The news agency carried a string of decisions reached at an emergency cabinet session on Tuesday which amounted to the acting premier's first concrete steps to reverse Russia's financial crisis since he was brought back to the government late last month.

Two measures designed to boost foreign currency receipts to the public coffers would allow gas giant Gazprom and 14 Russian oil companies to pay their taxes in foreign currency, and would allow customs duties to be paid in foreign currencies.

The moves would break with efforts dating back to January 1994 to keep the rouble as the only medium of tender in Russia.

A third measure ordered Russia's 50 largest companies to transfer their tax accounts to the central bank, the federal treasury, state savings bank Sberbank and foreign trade bank Vneshtorgbank in a bid to wrest greater control over the tax collection process.

Meanwhile, the government said it would launch a massive crackdown starting Thursday on all retail traders raising prices unduly as a result of the recent rouble slump.

The rouble has lost 70 percent of its value since it was unhooked from the dollar on August 17.

And, amid the deteriorating political and financial crisis, Krasnoyarsk governor Alexander Lebed today laid claim to the country's leadership, Interfax said.

Lebed, a former national security advisor, said he was ready to shoulder the responsibility of leading the country out of the crisis if the situation worsened further.

However, he did not make clear whether he was referring to the presidency or the post of prime minister.

Lebed did not rule out that Russian President Boris Yeltsin may nominate a new candidate for the premiership after the Duma's second rejection last Monday of his nominee Viktor Chernomyrdin. But he said he had not been asked if he was ready to take over the post.

Yesterday, acting foreign minister Yevgeni Primakov and Moscow's influential mayor Yuri Lushkov, who had both been tipped as possible candidates, dismissed speculation that they were available for the post.