MOSCOW (AP) -- Angry lawmakers on Saturday demanded an immediate halt to NATO airstrikes on Yugoslavia and called for upgrading Russia's military preparedness and freezing the START II nuclear arms reduction treaty.
President Boris Yeltsin and his deputies meanwhile searched for ways to support Yugoslavia without being drawn deeper into a conflict with the West.Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev joined lawmakers in demanding an end to the bombing, but they said Russia could not risk a military confrontation with NATO.
Sergeyev said that Russia "on no account must slide into confrontation, much less drag (itself) into any military adventures."
Ivanov echoed that, telling the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, that Russia would not act rashly or threaten a military response to the NATO strikes.
"Those who expect Russia to act on impulse and retaliate with similar steps (to NATO's) are mistaken," he said in response to the proposal by some deputies that the Russian army be put on a higher state of combat readiness. The proposal was later dropped.
The Duma voted 366 to 4, with two abstentions, to condemn the NATO attacks.
The resolution, which has no binding power on the government, also called for improving Russia's military preparedness, including "elaborating mobilization and operative plans," and temporarily putting aside the START II treaty.
It also called for an emergency meeting of the U.N. General Assembly. In a separate resolution, the Duma voted to cut off its own ties with NATO.
"Today we witness how the 19 most powerful countries are using modern weapons to annihilate" Yugoslavia, Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov told the Duma. He called on the Russian government to break the United Nations arms embargo against Yugoslavia.
Yet in its weakened state, Russia is in no position to directly confront the West despite Moscow's anger over the strikes. Russia is no longer a major military power, and needs Western financial help to revive its crippled economy.
Aside from angry rhetoric, the government so far has concentrated on largely symbolic actions and expressions of solidarity with Yugoslavia -- leaving the door open for Russia to serve as a mediator in the conflict.
In a letter to Yugoslavia's President Slobodan Milosevic, Yeltsin pledged the "support of the Russian government to the people of Yugoslavia and support for decisive talks concerning the war-like acts of NATO," the Kremlin said Saturday.
The Duma resolution reflects the souring relations between the United States and Russia, which are at their lowest level since the end of the Cold War. One casualty of the rift appears to be the START II treaty, which both Ivanov and Sergeyev had urged the Duma to ratify in spite of the NATO airstrikes.
The lower house, the State Duma, had agreed to set the debate on the long-delayed agreement for Friday. But the Duma on Saturday called on Yeltsin to temporarily withdraw the START II treaty from consideration, where he had sent it for ratification.
Meanwhile, protesters staged a third day of rallies Saturday outside the American and British embassies in Moscow. About 2,000 protesters, many of them elderly people, gathered near the U.S. Embassy, where Communist leader Zyuganov and other speakers assailed the attacks against Yugoslavia.