Leandro De Itaquera

As prime minister from 1992 to 1998, he acquired a reputation as a compromiser who leans considerably more to the West than the current Prime Minister, Yevgeny Primakov, or his government.Moscow knows the Kosovo war could provide it with a golden opportunity to play a starring diplomatic role, its best chance to do so since the break-up of the Soviet Union. It also knows this means ignoring domestic pressure to give unqualified support to the Serbs. Mr Yeltsin - if not his administration, with whom he has strained relations - appears to be trying to grasp that opportunity.Russia should take the chance to end the bloodshed now, "when there are neither winners nor losers", Mr Chernomyrdin said yesterday. Moscow would step up its diplomatic efforts "in all directions" to bring an end to Nato bombing.

But, in an unusually even-handed remark by Russian standards, he said that both "belligerent parties" should be brought to the negotiating table.Although the 61-year-old is derided as a fat-cat windbag by many Russians who resent his role in the failed market reforms, he has the advantage of good connections. He is personally acquainted with the two biggest players, Slobodan Milosevic and Bill Clinton, whom he plans to visit soon.Mr Chernomyrdin is generally approved of by Western leaders, who see him as a member of the exiled team of market reformers who once dominated the Russian government. The Kremlin was keen yesterday to advertise his "great political experience", and "broad international recognition".Mr Yeltsin's move comes amid a general toning down of Russia's expressions of outrage over the Yugoslav war, after an initial burst of fury. The most striking example of its new strategy came during Tuesday's meeting in Oslo between Madeleine Albright, the US Secretary of State, and her Russian counterpart, Igor Ivanov. Although their talks brought little concrete progress, both sides vowed to continue talking and there was a largely co-operative mood - a far cry from the previous week.In recent days, Russian television coverage of the Balkans has become more balanced, and now includes accounts of the suffering of the refugees.News of the Yugoslav parliament's vote to join the Russia-Belarus union was greeted coolly in Moscow; public opinion surveys showed that more than two-thirds of Russians were not interested in joining a political embrace with their troubled Slavic cousins.The fact that 20 per cent of the Russian population is Muslim has finally begun to filter through to the ivory towers. Combine that with the country's need for Western loans and investment, and it becomes clear that Russia could not sensibly give unqualified support to Mr Milosevic, even if it wanted to.. EVEN IN war, the first casualty - just occasionally - need not be the truth Sometimes, indeed, there is no alternative to the truth.

That was the lesson of Nato's bombing of the Serb train on Monday in which at least 10 civilians died. If allied planes were mistakenly responsible for yesterday's far deadlier attack on a convoy containing refugees in southern Kosovo, the lesson will be even more bitter. In this war, as in every war, propaganda is a vital weapon. It is vital for the Western democracies, where strategies ultimately depend on public opinion - but it is also vital for Belgrade. By fast public relations footwork, Nato has neutralised the train disaster. If confirmed, the slaughter of refugees - 64 ethnic Albanians, according to the Serbs - may be far harder to cope with.Convince the public the cause is just, liken the enemy to Hitler, sanitise every nastiness perpetrated by your side, and claim you are firmly on the way to victory - these are the rules of the game Both sides have been faithfully playing them.

Until the train on the bridge at Leskovac.The affair could have been a PR disaster, proof of how the allies in their frustration at their failure to land a knockout blow to the Milosevic military machine were sinking to terror bombing of helpless civilians. Prevarication, or pretending the train was a legitimate military target, would have made matters even worse.Instead, we witnessed a rare and deliberate show of honesty It was an "unfortunate accident... we are all very sorry for it", Nato's Supreme Commander, General Wesley Clark, said as the press was shown a full cockpit video of the incident. The pilot, it transpired, had fired not one bomb, but two; the second was fired after he knew he had hit a train Quite why that second attack happened is unclear.

But we basically know what went on, and few more questions need to be asked. If it was allied aircraft that slaughtered the refugee near Djakovica, we must brace for a far more harrowing mea culpa from Nato - and, conceivably, a sea change in public attitudes to the air war.Until now, Belgrade's forays into the propaganda war have been more comic than threatening: "88 Nato men dead and 32 planes lost", ran a front- page headline last week in the Greek daily Athinaiki, gleefully reported by the official Yugoslav news agency, Tanjug. News indeed to warm Serb hearts, but somewhat at variance with the one verified loss of an F-117.Indeed, two mysteries of this strangest of wars are the tiny scale of Nato losses (one aircraft and, as far as can be ascertained, not a single life - astonishing given the advance publicity about Serb air defence capabilities) and the small civilian death toll in Serbia caused by the bombing - until yesterday, at least, under 100. Had there been more, we would certainly have known.Then there have been the tales put out by the Serbian Information Ministry of "columns" of deserters from the Nato force stationed in Yugoslavia, donning civilian clothes and streaming into Greece and Bulgaria, and of conscience-stricken Norwegian pilots who refused to take part in the air attack, and returned home to the cheers of their countrymen. For those who dare criticise, they must ponder the fate of Slavko Curuvija, the independent newspaper owner shot dead outside his Belgrade apartment on Sunday.Nato, of course, propagates its own brand of wishful thinking. Early on, we were told of Kosovo Albanian leaders who had been murdered. It transpired they had not and Nato, admittedly, retracted the claim.