Moscow and NATO yesterday inched closer on a peacekeeping operation for Kosovo while Belgrade reportedly confirmed it had accepted the Group of Eight principles for peace in the region.
Allied spokespersons, meanwhile, denied Serb claims that NATO missiles had struck a sanatorium in Surdulica, southern Serbia, killing at least 20 people including Albanian refugees.
An apartment building in southern Serbia was hit in a NATO air attack yesterday and at least 10 people were killed and more than 20 wounded, the Yugoslav state news agency, Tanjug, said.
The French Foreign Minister, Mr Hubert Vedrine, said in Brussels a "decisive moment" in the Kosovo crisis was close at hand, in the light of Belgrade's reported compliance with peace terms.
He said the Finnish President, Mr Martti Ahtisaari, and the Russian special envoy, Mr Viktor Chernomyrdin, would hold talks with the Yugoslav government tomorrow in Belgrade.
Western allies have reacted cautiously to reports that President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia agreed to a G8 plan saying they wanted to hear from Mr Milosevic himself, and continued bombing.
But diplomats in Brussels pointed out that Russia and alliance members were closing the gap between their positions on control of the peacekeeping force and the distribution of responsibilities on the ground in Kosovo.
Russia's Interfax news agency reported the Russian Prime Minister, Mr Sergei Stepashin, and President Clinton had discussed the crisis on the telephone.
NATO bombers knocked out two key electricity transformers, blacking out the Serbian capital, Yugoslav state television reported last night, adding that much of Serbia was without electricity.
In another development, a large force of Yugoslav tanks approached part of the Albanian border yesterday where KLA guerrillas have been operating, according to Albanian police and KLA sources.
Lara Marlowe writes from Surdulica:
Milena Malobabic became a statistic yesterday - one of the hundreds of Serb and Albanian civilians killed in NATO's bombardment of Yugoslavia.
Her body was one of 19 found in the aftermath of the midnight bombing of the sanitorium and an old people's home.
"I am beginning to think that Surdulica is doomed," Dusan Petkovic, the town's English teacher, said. "We have been bombed four times, and this is the second time they killed more than 20 civilians."