Russian President Boris Yeltsin will leave the Kremlin when his second term expires in mid-2000, his spokesman, Dmitry Yakushkin said in a newspaper interview due out on December 24.

"There still are people who come to the president and ask him, Boris Nikolayevich, please stay, stay for a third term... But the president answers them with a firm no," Yakushkin told the Izvestiya daily newspaper.

"To leave his post at the scheduled time is a matter of honor" for Yeltsin, the spokesman said. "He has set the rules of the game and must follow them."

It is "solely...the national interests of Russia" that explain Yeltsin's desire to see Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the next president, Yakushkin said.

Putin was named prime minister last August, when Yeltsin described him as his preferred successor at the Kremlin. His rating has skyrocketed in recent months following the launch of tough military actions against rebels in the breakaway republic of Chechnya.

Last Sunday's parliamentary elections, widely seen as a dress rehearsal for the 2000 presidential race, have also turned out to be favoring the current ruling establishment.

Yakushkin denied rumors that Putin "is already governing the country, while the president is in effect barred from work due to his health condition."

It was also unlikely, Yakushkin said, that Yeltsin would in a while opt for someone else as his unofficial successor.

It was for "serious reasons" that all the previous prime ministers had been fired in the past couple of years, although" the true reasons could not always be made public and therefore caused a heightened curiosity in society," the spokesman said.

Yeltsin dismissed four prime ministers in the past two years.

"The president's steps are undoubtedly based on a well- considered strategy, which, actually, becomes confirmed by further developments," Yakushkin said.