Boris Yeltsin’s latest health crisis — a bleeding ulcer — has critics of the Russian president once again demanding his resignation. Yeltsin supporters say he’s as capable of running the county as anyone.

There can be no better indication of just how dire conditions are in Russia than this: the supporters are correct.

No slight to Mr. Yeltsin. He has struggled heroically as Russia’s first and only elected president to build a nation out of the rubble of the Soviet sham empire. He has paid a terrible price: quadruple bypass surgery; several bouts with pneumonia; numerous heart attacks; increasing incidents of public drunkenness and other erratic behavior. Former political allies now distance themselves, calling on him to quit. Or waiting for him to die.

Or, at worst, biding time until the June 2000 election. Many want the job — unrepentant Communists, wavering free-marketers, flag-waving authoritarians, plain old opportunists — but no one demonstrates any ability to actually do the job. If Russia’s overwhelming financial crisis indicates the extent to which the Soviet economy was a mirage, the leadership vacuum exposes the hollowness of Soviet politics.

Russia has a national debt in excess of $150 billion and imposed repayment schedules that are utterly unrealistic. It likely will default on virtually all of its $17 billion in payments due this year. It owes its teachers, soldiers, other public employees and pensioners some $5 billion it doesn’t have. It has no way to pay its bills; other than natural resources, now at rock-bottom prices, Russia produces practically nothing the rest of the world wants.

Except — and here is where Russia’s leadership gap becomes the world’s problem — for weapons. Making weapons is what the Soviets did best, it’s a high-profit business and a market, sadly, with unlimited growth potential.

Russia has roughly 22,000 nuclear warheads, its nuclear program is one of the few industries to actually expand during the economic crisis. Russian nuclear experts are in great demand; their activities in India, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran and North Korea are well documented.

Perhaps even more telling is this news item of last week, one of the few “good news” stories Russians have had during the past year: the new MiG fighter made its debut the other day. Defense officials tout the new aircraft’s flight characteristics and electronics as decidedly superior to anything the West builds. Had a few dozen been in Saddam Hussein’s arsenal last month, said one, 90 percent of the British and American missiles fired during Desert Fox would have been knocked from the sky.

As recently as a year ago, those who talked of Russia becoming a rogue state, a shopping center for terrorists, were dismissed as Cold Warriors with too much time on their hands. Now, as Russia’s desperation increases, many experts see it a distinct possibility unless the West responds quickly with a plan — including financial assistance — to help Russia rebuild; this time without conditions that further punish the Russian people for the 70 years of misery they endured as captives of the Soviet Union.

Like the Russian people, Boris Yeltsin is deeply flawed, impossible to understand, altogether maddening, yet willing to make enormous sacrifices. He has tried to build a nation out of nothing, but the task is too great for a lone 67-year-old with a bad heart, a tendency to drink too much and a bleeding ulcer. He may have one more shot at it. He needs help.