The service said Yeltsin, back at the Kremlin after illness, had signed a decree removing the cabinet.

It gave no reasons but Yeltsin had criticised the government on Saturday for huge delays in paying wages to state sector workers.

Yeltsin's announcement came as a bombshell. His Prime Minister, Viktor Chernomyrdin, has been seen as a loyal premier who served more than five years as scores of other Cabinet officials had come and gone.

However, there had been strong speculation recently that Chernomyrdin would be a candidate for president in 2000.

Unprecedented move

Chernomyrdin: long-serving premier

Yeltsin had recently said that Chernomyrdin and other top Cabinet officials would stay in place for the rest of his term.

While Yeltsin has a reputation for unpredictability, the dismissal of his entire government would be unprecedented, even by a president famous for doing the unexpected.

It was not known if Yeltsin might reappoint some of the dismissed ministers to their old or new posts when he names a new prime minister.

The president had been critical of Chernomyrdin and his top two deputies for failing to fulfill his promises to pay back wages and other arrears.

Also reportedly dismissed where the government's top two economic reformers, first deputy prime ministers Anatoly Chubais and Boris Nemtsov, the key architects of the government's reform programme.

Chubais and Nemtsov had been bitterly criticised by the Communists and other opposition groups for their economic policies.

The moves may shake the confidence of foreign investors and aid donors, who have been playing a major role in supporting the struggling Russian economy.