Kremlin Says Yeltsin Just Has ‘Heavy Cold’

MOSCOW —  Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin was off work Monday because of “a heavy cold,” but a Kremlin spokesman said the president’s illness was “in no way” an effect of his recent multiple-bypass heart surgery.

In Soviet days, announcements by the state news agency Tass that Kremlin leaders had taken time out to nurse colds were often the first hints of their impending deaths. Yeltsin returned to work at the end of December after five months of preparation for and convalescence from his November surgery.

But Yeltsin’s press spokesman, Sergei V. Yastrzhembsky, stressed at a briefing Monday that Yeltsin’s health was “bound to return to normal” by the end of the week.

“A wave of flu which has descended on Moscow has not spared the president’s family,” Yastrzhembsky said. “Many in the president’s family either have suffered from it or have the flu now.”

He said Yeltsin’s temperature had gone up to 99.5, that doctors had prescribed an “outpatient regime” and that the president had been forced to cancel meetings, including a planned Wednesday session of the Defense Council to discuss reforming Russia’s army.

Yastrzhembsky denied media reports that an urgent medical council had been called to discuss the presidential cold, saying instead that Yeltsin had been visited at his residence outside Moscow by Sergei Mironov, chief of the presidential medical service.

Yastrzhembsky said Yeltsin held two meetings Monday, one to discuss the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s plans to expand into once-Communist Eastern Europe and another with Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin.

Russian media expressed no alarm at Yeltsin’s illness, which also was downplayed by Dr. Michael DeBakey, the heart surgery pioneer who has consulted on the care for the Russian leader and who was contacted in Houston.

The Itar-Tass news agency reported that Chernomyrdin planned to take a brief holiday in the country beginning at midweek, an indication that he was unconcerned about his boss’ health.