AMERICAN STUDYING IN RUSSIA MAY BE SWEPT UP IN SPY CASE

MOSCOW -- An American student who was investigated on suspicion of
espionage and charged with possession of marijuana may instead face more
serious drug charges, Russian police authorities indicated today.

It was not clear whether the case of the student, John Edward Tobin, 24,
was taking a more serious turn because of last week's decision by the Bush
administration to expel 50 Russian diplomats for what Washington calls
espionage activity.

But given that Mr. Tobin is in a Army Reserve intelligence unit, it seems
likely that his case has been complicated by the spying dispute.

Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov, speaking on state television tonight, said
relations between Washington and Moscow were in an "emergency situation."
He repeated that Russia's response to the expulsion of its diplomats would
be "adequate and symmetrical," and added that Russia "is not a country with
which one can talk in the language of ultimatums."

At the Kremlin tonight, President Vladimir V. Putin met with parliamentary
leaders and one of them, the former prime minister Yevgeny Primakov, said
Mr. Putin expressed a desire "to improve Russia's relations with the United
States."

Mr. Primakov said Mr. Putin speculated that the Bush administration is
taking a harder line with Moscow to contrast itself with the "flabbiness of
the former administration."

In a diplomatic note on Friday, the Foreign Ministry said it was expelling
four Americans, though it did not initially provide their names to the
United States Embassy. A Foreign Ministry spokesman said today that further
information would be delivered through diplomatic channels.

In the police case against Mr. Tobin, a native of Ridgefield, Conn., a
senior investigator in the prosecutor's office, Andrei Makarov, told the
Reuters news agency that Mr. Tobin, already charged with simple possession
of marijuana, would now face charges of being part of a drug ring. If
convicted, he could face 15 years in prison. Mr. Makarov said Mr. Tobin's
suspected accomplices are American citizens who are no longer in the country.

Mr. Tobin was pursuing graduate studies at Voronezh State University in
southwestern Russia under the State Department's Fulbright scholars
program. Though he was in Russia as a private citizen, Mr. Tobin is a
trained interrogator who holds the rank of Army Reserve specialist in the
325th Military Intelligence Battalion in Waterbury, Conn. He studied
Russian at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif.

Mr. Tobin was arrested on Feb. 1 after he had been questioned by the police
in Voronezh on Jan. 25. The night he was arrested, the police said they had
found a half ounce of marijuana in his possession. A search of his
apartment yielded another ounce and a half, the police said.

At first, Russia's domestic intelligence agency took an interest in Mr.
Tobin, but later said there were no grounds for espionage charges.