MOSCOW — Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, fearing that strikes could shatter his reforms, delivered billions of rubles in back wages to industrial hot spots Tuesday and urged oil workers to hold out despite hardship.
"We all must make sacrifices, but there is a sense to it," Yeltsin said in an appeal to energy workers. "If we hold out, we can stabilize the economy."
Russian Television said that Moscow eased the strike threat in Siberia's Kuzbass coal fields by delivering 4 billion rubles in wages. Workers were demanding 20 billion rubles. A ruble is worth about a penny.
Russia's Itar-Tass news agency said that workers at the Krasnoyarsk chemical plant, which makes plutonium for nuclear arms, called off a strike after a railway car packed with 25 million rubles arrived.
