The Russian president's shake-up of the Kremlin, carried out in a three-hour break from his hospital ward, was a typical Yeltsin gesture, a demonstration of what one commentator calls his "predictable unpredictability."

Mr Yeltsin has the habit, after an absence or illness, of reappearing in his office to perform a dramatic flourish that shows everyone he is still boss.

But this time the episode took place in a different key. The once powerful president limited his hirings and firings to within the Kremlin walls - the government is now off limits to him. And his health is so poor that he immediately returned to the Central Clinic Hospital.

More power to Kremlin

The ostensible aim of the reshuffle is clear: it is supposed to show that Mr Yeltsin is still a strong politician and strengthen his administration, which has ceded many of its executive powers to the government and give it a new role as the centre of the fight against crime and tax evasion.

So the Kremlin now has formal control of the tax service and the justice ministry and its new chief of staff is a former border-guard, Nikolai Bordyuzha, with good connections in the law enforcement agencies.

Few friends left

But the reshuffle could also be read as a sign of weakness in a man who now has few political friends left. The sacked chief of staff, Valentin Yumashev, wrote Mr Yeltsin's memoirs and became a close friend of his family.

He now joins a long list of former allies, who have worked by his side for years only to be dismissed. They include Gennady Burbulis, Alexander Korzhakov, Viktor Ilyushin, Anatoly Chubais, Oleg Lobov and Lev Sukhanov.

Now perhaps the only person working for the president who has any deep personal loyalty is his daughter, Tatyana Dyachenko. So the effect of the reshuffle is not so much to enhance Mr Yeltsin's authority as to deepen his isolation.

Inner circle weakened

Many people will welcome the way the reshuffle promises to turn the Kremlin administration, which is often a nest of political intrigue, into more of a professional bureaucracy.

In the last year and a half, Mr Yumashev, Mrs Dyachenko, and the financier Boris Berezovsky have formed a powerful behind-the-scenes inner circle. The sacking of Mr Yumashev marks the end of this phase, and a weakening of Mr Berezovsky's influence.