The recent steps by the Ukrainian authorities to curtail Crimean autonomy, with the suspension of the region's constitution, the dissolution of its parliament and the abolition of its presidency, have been met in Moscow by an acquiescence bordering on endorsement.


The current mood in Moscow contrasted sharply with past demands for respect for the rights of the Russian majority in Ukraine, long regarded as a tinderbox in relations between the two countries.


Deputy Prime Minister Oleg Soskovets, who is in Kiev to finalize details of a long awaited friendship treaty stressed that the Crimean issue was "Ukraine's internal matter."


His sentiments were echoed Tuesday by Foreign Ministry spokesman Grigory Karasin, who made it clear that Russia had no plans to raise objections to Ukraine's action. "I confirm Russia's respect for the integrity of Ukraine's territory," Karasin told a regular news briefing, Reuters reported.


Federation Council speaker Vladimir Shumeiko said Tuesday there was no point in discussing Crimea in the upper house of parliament. And Yeltsin's postponed visit to the Ukrainian capital, scheduled for mid-April, is still on.


After years of Moscow's attempts to prop up the pro-Russian autonomy in Crimea, Russia's matter-of-fact reaction to the Ukrainian parliament's decision to curtail this autonomy seemed strangely anticlimactic.


In 1993, the Russian parliament, since disbanded, declared Crimea's Sevastopol a Russian city. President Boris Yeltsin and his ministers have made numerous statements declaring the Black Sea Fleet, based in Crimea, Russian property, despite Ukrainian demands that the fleet be divided.


Crimea has long been a major stumbling block in Russian-Ukrainian relations. But with Russian troops bogged down in Chechnya and negotiations pending on the division of the Black Sea Fleet, the Russian authorities apparently felt it was the wrong moment for vehement protests.


"The president's visit is coming up, and one of the unresolved issues the president will need to deal with is the Black Sea Fleet," said Viktor Borisyuk, a senior analyst with Yeltsin's Information and Analysis Center. "So why on earth would he protest? Our diplomacy has been doing a good job."


"It is quite possible that Yeltsin and [Ukrainian President Leonid] Kuchma have a secret agreement to trade Russia's silence on the Crimea for some concessions during the talks," said Vyacheslav Igrunov, deputy head of the State Duma's committee for ties with the former Soviet republics and a member of the reformist Yabloko faction.


But apart from Russia's possible attempts to lay a positive foundation for the upcoming talks, some analysts see an underlying motive of weakness behind Russia's business-as-usual stand on Crimea.


"One gets the impression that Kuchma picked the best possible moment for cutting the Crimean knot," the liberal daily Izvestia wrote Tuesday. "Today Russia is so bogged down in Chechnya that its leaders have not the strength, the desire or the chance to play the Crimean card, which only recently seemed to be a trump."


Igrunov concurred with this point of view on the Kremlin's silence, adding that Moscow was in no position for criticizing Kiev's power move. "Partly it's gratitude to the Ukraine for its silence on Chechnya," he said. "But after Chechnya and the shelling of the parliament in 1993, the Kremlin just could not possibly object to Ukraine's actions."


But Sergei Markov, a political analyst with the Carnegie endowment in Moscow, disagreed.


"Ukraine is not Chechnya's natural ally in the way Russia is Crimea's natural ally," he said. "Moscow does not care what Ukraine would say about Chechnya, anyway."


In a similar situation, Russia offered little in the way of official reaction to Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev's decision to disband his country's parliament earlier this month. Analysts were careful to point out that it is hard to draw parallels between the events in Kazakhstan and those in Crimea, but Igrunov said that Russia's lack of reaction was understandable.


"Russia will look calmly upon the growth of authoritarian tendencies in former Soviet nations because the Russian government is moving that way itself," he said.