Thursday, February 18, 1999 Published at 15:56 GMT
Yeltsin: 'Don't touch Kosovo'
The US is sending in more planes, including 12 Stealth fighters
Russian President Boris Yeltsin says he has warned US President Bill Clinton not to use force against Yugoslavia even if the peace talks on the troubled province of Kosovo fail.
The Kremlin has not specified when the discussion took place. However, the White House is quoted as saying that Mr Yeltsin's views were long held and that President Clinton had not spoken recently to his Russian counterpart.
This was the latest in a series of warnings aimed at persuading Yugoslavia to sign up to a peace deal.
The increased US threat of force was backed up on Thursday by Nato Secretary-General Javier Solana, who warned that Nato would act "very soon" if warring Serbs and ethnic Albanians failed to reach a peace deal at talks in Rambouillet, near Paris.
The rival delegations - called to the peace table by the Contact Group - have until noon on Saturday to agree a peace deal.
Russia is one of the six Contact Group nations, and while it supports autonomy for Kosovo, it strongly opposes the threat of Nato force against the Serbs, with whom it has traditional ties.
Russia says there can be no Nato deployment in Kosovo without Belgrade's full approval, and Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has ruled out any such deployment.
Mr Milosevic's continuing refusal to accept Nato ground troops in Kosovo as part of an overall settlement is causing growing impatience in Washington, according to a BBC correspondent.
Talks speeding up
However, with the deadline for a peace deal looming, there were reports on Thursday that negotiations at Rambouillet had accelerated - after the Serbian delegation submitted written responses to proposals from US, European Union and Russian mediators.
Serbian President Milan Milutinovic was reported to be returning to the talks on Thursday afternoon "in good faith and fairly optimistic".
The British and French foreign ministers were expected back at the talks on Friday to turn up the pressure on delegates. And US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was due to arrive for the talks' climax on Saturday.