The recent sex scandal which resulted in Boris Yeltsin's firing of Russian Justice Minister Valentin Kovalev has given a new turn to the ongoing Kremlin sleaze war which started last year between the two rounds of presidential elections.

While the use of kompromat, or compromising material, is nothing new in Kremlin power struggle since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, this is the first time such explicit material has been used in what some observers say is a calculated plan to remove Kovalev.

The clips from the videotape repeatedly broadcast on Russian TV Channels, showed former Communist Kovalev, engaging in group sex in a luxury sauna, frequented by the powerful Mosocw Solntsevo mafia. Radio stations and newspapers too had a field day.

The scandal has turned into a far more complicated affair than a simple western-style ``sleaze'' story. Political observers have speculated about the motive of the videotape, given Kovalev didn't appear to be the centre of the political intrigue. This was not something that was discovered by chance and was purposely given to the public to show the ``true face'' of Kremlin officials, they point out.

Larisa Kisilinskaya, the journalist who first disclosed the sensational scandal in the monthly journal Sovershenno Sekretno (Top Secret), publishing stills from the video, has said that a copy of the tape was leaked to her by an Interior Ministry source. She also claimed, the sauna shots, along with compromising material on other prominent officials were kept as insurance by people who might need future protection from criminal prosecution.

Russia's Prosecutor General Yuri Skuratov has said, authorities would try to determine the source and authenticity of the tape. He has also promised that Prosecutor General's Office would investigate any relationship Kovalev might have had with the president of the Montazhspetsbank, Arkady Angelevich, from whose safe the videotape was taken. Angelevich was arrested in April and is currently under investigation for the embezzlement of millions of dollars.Many analysts say, if the tape was confiscated from Angelevich, then the Interior Ministry stands to gain most from its release. ``Kovalev hs been trying to expand his ministry at the expense of the Interior Ministry and the Prosecutor General's Office,'' said Andrei Pointkowsky, director of the Moscow Centre for Strategic Studies.

``When there is such a scandal in the West, it's always the initiative of reporters, but here it is down to the Interior Ministry,'' he noted.But the Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov has denied leaking the video.According to Kremlin insiders, showing the tape on TV wasn't meant against Kovalev, but possibly against members of Yeltsin's staff. However, the Kovalev sex scandal has proved extremely embarrassing for both Yeltsin and Premier Viktor Chernomyrdin, especially hurting them at a time when they are apparently engaged in an exercise to give an efficient and clean government to the people.

``This is not a blow against the Justice Minister, it's aimed against the prestige of the country,'' said director of the Federal Security Service (former KGB) Nikola Kovalev, commenting on the sex scandal.

Experts also note the coincidence of the disclosure of the scandal with the announcement of Alexander Korzhakov, Yeltsin's former chief bodyguard and confidante, threatening to make public a videotape showing the president as a chronic alcoholic, incapable of making decisions, and suffering from bouts of depression, leading to several suicide attempts in the past years.Yeltsin fired Korzhakov last summer at the peak of a long-simmering Kremlin power struggle between the then campaign chief Anatoly Chubaiswho was running the stridently anti-communist campaignand the Korzhakov clique, which wanted the ailing President to cancel presidential elections for an alliance with the Communists.

Korzhakov had openly accused Yeltsin's younger daughter Tatyana Dyachenko of collaborating with people who wanted to drive the President into the ground and rule in his place from the behind.

When the Kremlin power struggle broke out into the open, both camps traded corruption charges. Among them were that hundreds of thousands of dollars were allegedly taken by Chubais's men from the safes of White House, the seat of Russian government to finance Yeltsin's campaign and that Korzhakov's minions embezzled millions from National Sports Fund and then masterminded an assassination attempt on the Fund chairman.

Recently, Dyachenko, Yeltsin's officially appointed adviser, has been the target of another of Kremlin sleze attack, the reason being her ever-increasing influence since she joined the Kremlin Analytical Centre run by Chubais who was then Yeltsin's chief of staff.The Communists and nationalists are especially worried by Dyachenko's close ties with Chubais, currently the second most powerful figure in the Kremlin after Yeltsin. For them, he is the symbol of everything that is bad about Yeltsin's economic reforms.

Apparently, they have launched a smear campaign that the two have developed an ``intimate relationship'', which goes ``beyond their business relation,'' although Chubais has termed such rumours as the ``amorous line', of a Communist smear propaganda. Last month, in an interview to the Kommersant Daily, he denied that Dyachenko and he were romantically involved.However, what is intriguing to many political observers is that Dyachenko herself has not said anything publicly on the long-running controversy in the Russian press.

Whatever the motive for the release of the videotape rocking the Kremlin , Kovalev's firing is also being regarded as victory for the Russian media. Allegations have been made in press before about the conduct of ministers but none has led to such drastic consequences, media analysts believe.Yeltsin's firing of Kovalev was already a significant step forward for the Russian media, said Artyom Borovik, editor of the Shovershenno Sekretno. ``Now his sacking and replacement by Sergei Stepashin, former chief of Federal Security Service, will give investigative journalists of Russian media even greater confidence,' he said.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.