Yeltsin to Take Time Off to Get Well

Boris N. Yeltsin’s doctor said pneumonia will keep the Russian president away from the Kremlin for the rest of the month. The doctor revealed that Yeltsin rejected entreaties to be hospitalized early in the week, when X-rays showed the first signs of pneumonia. He gave in only after his condition worsened. Yeltsin is expected to be released from the hospital in about three days but will then need an additional three weeks of rehabilitation, Dr. Sergei Mironov said. “To speak honestly, we have not reached a decisive breakthrough” in combating the pneumonia, Mironov said.