The war of words began with a story published in the daily Segodnya, in which Sergei Nosovets, head of the Information Department of Yeltsin's staff, spoke of upcoming changes in the way the president's press service operates.
Nosovets has recently been nominated to head Yeltsin's new Information Directorate, which will merge the president's press service with two more information departments of the presidential staff.
Some press service officials have said off the record that they might leave the reorganized service because it reminds them of the Communist Party's ideological directorate.
But Nosovets countered that "such officials are leaving today because they will lose their feeding trough and because they will no longer be able to treat the media according to the rankings they themselves impose."
Nosovets said, according to Segodnya, that the current press service was "blacklisting" some journalists, denying them accreditation for events involving the president.
Yeltsin's personal press secretary, Vyacheslav Kostikov, who admitted last week that Yeltsin had asked him to find a successor and then leave, responded with an unprecedented personal statement which did not name Nosovets but which criticized "unworthy allegations" about the press service.
"It is surprising that a man who talks about his intention to assume leadership of this difficult area is starting out by insulting people who were next to the president when times were hard for democracy, and who defended glasnost and freedom with him," Kostikov said in the statement, carried by all news agencies.
That may have been a veiled reference to Nosovets' past as a Supreme Soviet deputy. The press chief candidate left the parliament building days before it was stormed by Yeltsin's troops last fall, taking the offer of instant cushy jobs that Yeltsin dangled before deputies who would leave the Supreme Soviet.
Kostikov, as Yeltsin's spokesman since 1992, is known for the fierce offensive he waged against the rebellious parliament last year.
One of Nosovets' accusations to which Kostikov was reacting was that press service officials gave preferential treatment to interview and accreditation requests from foreign journalists "out of money interest."
Many foreign correspondents have also aired concerns about wealthy television companies gaining more access to Yeltsin than print journalists, who, like their Russian colleagues, have been repeatedly stonewalled by the uncommunicative press service.
"I don't know what made Kostikov react so vehemently," Nosovets' deputy Marina Nekrasova said. "Nosovets was just suggesting ways to improve the accreditation system."
But, determined to respond to Kostikov's accusations, Nekrasova added that it was "a shame that members of the same team are saying such tactless things about fellow members."
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