MOSCOW (AP) -- Boris Yeltsin, still recovering from pneumonia, walked around his hospital grounds Tuesday but gave no indication of any new surprise forays to the Kremlin.

The president roused himself from his sickbed for three hours Monday and fired several top aides, including some who have commented recently on Yeltsin's weakened health.But Yeltsin continued to keep his distance from Russia's pressing economic problems. The Russian economy slumped earlier this year, partly in response to Asia's economic travails, and plummeted after Aug. 17, when the government devalued the ruble and temporarily froze foreign debt payments. Yeltsin fired almost his entire Cabinet as a result of that decision.

Presidential spokesman Dmitry Yakushkin said doctors allowed the president to take brief walks around the hospital grounds Tuesday for the first time since he was hospitalized with pneumonia Nov. 22.

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"That means he is on the way to recovery," Yakushkin said.

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