Senators in the Federation Council upper house declined for the second time in just over a month to ratify Yeltsin's instruction to dismiss Yury Skuratov, who has been accused of accepting sessions with prostitutes as bribes.

Yeltsin has wanted Skuratov out ever since the prosecutor started corruption probes into Kremlin officials and business barons with close ties to the president himself.

The vote also emphasised that the upper house is no longer lacked with pro-Yeltsin yes-men, and graphically illustrated the widening rift between powerful regional bosses who sit in the chamber and the deflating Kremlin administration.

Skuratov himself sounded defiant after the 79-61 vote in his favor.

``I am prepared to lead my investigations to the end,'' he said.

The chief prosecutor has been leading amonths-long investigation into the murky upper echelons of power, though he has remained tight-lipped on the precise details of compromising material unearthed in his probes.

But Skuratov has repeatedly indicated that he has focused on top government and Kremlin officials during a probe into a kickbacks-for-contracts scandal.