Yeltsin sacks security service chief

Boris Yeltsin, the Russian president, yesterday issued a decree dismissing Vasily Trofimov, deputy director of the Federal Security Service (FSB), for "gross violations in his work "as revealed by the Russian Auditing Chamber".

It was not immediately clear whether his sacking was also linked to the arrest of two FSB officers earlier this month on suspicion of large-scale drug trafficking.

Helen Womack - Moscow