Hawkish aides appear to spoon-feed him information about Chechnya; his political supporters on the war there are limited to a motley array of extreme nationalists; he shuns his former allies, hoping for the victory he needs to exonerate him.


The future of President Boris Yeltsin hinges on the success of the military operation in Chechnya, reformist politicians and analysts say.


The latest of the president's deserters is former finance minister Boris Fyodorov, Yeltsin's only supporter in the reformist camp since the Dec. 11 invasion of Chechnya. Fyodorov criticized the president's actions Thursday, leaving Yeltsin with only two outspoken political allies -- ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Russian supremacist Alexander Barkashov.


"The president's only chance to preserve his dignity until the next election is to establish order in Chechnya," Fyodorov told a news conference. "But he has shown inefficiency in doing so."


Fyodorov's criticism came one day after Yegor Gaidar, the country's most prominent reformist leader, withdrew his support from Yeltsin, saying he had not been able to reach the president on the phone since the invasion.


Another key pro-reform leader, Grigory Yavlinsky, who openly declared himself opposed to Yeltsin a month before the invasion, has slammed the president for failing to resolve the Chechen crisis by peaceful means. Yavlinsky, canvassing support for his presidential candidacy in 1996, did not even bother to react to Yeltsin's Tuesday address, when the president defended his invasion of Chechnya and vowed to end the breakaway regime.


"If the war in Chechnya goes on for another month, I will demand a vote of no confidence in the government," added Fyodorov, who heads a 30-member radical reformist faction in the State Duma. "And if they are discussing impeachment -- why not?"


Fyodorov said the president was too late in addressing the nation 16 days after the invasion, when it was already clear that the military and the security services had bungled the operation.


Many traditional Yeltsin foes, including Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, have denounced the Chechen operation, saying it is the beginning of a police regime throughout Russia. After the invasion Zyuganov demanded early presidential elections.


The only people who seemed to embrace Yeltsin's policy wholeheartedly were the hardline nationalist forces.


Russian National Unity, a militant anti-Semitic group which sports black uniforms and armbands with a symbol closely resembling a swastika, issued a statement Thursday supporting the Chechen invasion.


"Russian National Unity declares its full support for the actions of the executive branch in Chechnya," the statement said. The group's leader, Alexander Barkashov, was one of the top organizers of armed resistance to Yeltsin's troops when they stormed the rebellious Russian parliament in October 1993.


Another of Yeltsin's new allies is Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who has urged fellow legislators not to protest against Yeltsin's actions. While critics have accused Zhirinovsky of stalling for time while Yeltsin discredits himself by unsuccessful military action, a spokesman for the ultranationalist leader said Thursday that Zhirinovsky was sincere.


"Yeltsin is doing what he's doing in the interests of Russia," said the spokesman, Nikolai Podlipayev.


But, unlike at previous critical points of his career, Yeltsin is not relying on political support, whomever it comes from.


No one, not even incensed democrats, is accusing Yeltsin of going over to the nationalist camp. Yeltsin's headlong onslaught on Chechnya is mostly blamed on the president's dependence on his old friends from his Communist Party days.


This week, Gaidar has bemoaned Security Council secretary Oleg Lobov's ascendancy over Yeltsin and newspapers have made an uproar about chief bodyguard Alexander Korzhakov's attempts to interfere in economic policymaking.


Analysts and liberal politicians have said that Yeltsin is being spoon-fed information by the security police. According to Gaidar, that explains dark allegations in Yeltsin's Tuesday speech that some Russian media are being financed by Chechen criminal gangs.


Russian journalists, traditionally touchy when accused of being corrupt, have written Yeltsin a letter demanding that he name the media that have taken money from Chechens in exchange for favorable coverage.


Yeltsin's debut as a conspiracy theorist may be indicative of two things: either his total disregard for public opinion or an assumption that a successful military venture will exonerate him in the public eye.


In the latter case, "President Yeltsin will again prove to citizens who had turned away from him that it is in desperate situations he is capable of acting resolutely and with toughness," the daily Segodnya said in a front-page article co-written by editor Dmitry Ostalsky.


"Victors are not to be judged," the article went on, "and when there are not enough enemies to defeat, they should be found and defeated."