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- WORLD, Page 40World NotesFORMER SOVIET UNIONA Dangerous Divide
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- Gloom descended as leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent
- States ended their summit meeting in Kiev last week without
- managing to defuse a situation that threatens the already
- fragile structure of the nascent organization: the growing
- rancor between Russia and Ukraine.
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- Their relations deteriorated two weeks ago when Ukrainian
- President Leonid Krav chuk announced that he was halting the
- transfer of tactical nuclear weapons to Russia. Kiev had pledged
- to hand over all such weapons by July, but so far, only around
- half of the roughly 2,500 tactical weapons have been shipped.
- In Moscow, Boris Yeltsin retaliated by creating his own defense
- ministry, the essential precursor to a separate Russian army.
- Ukraine then refused to take any part in a unified command
- structure. A proposal to set up a group of military observers
- to help resolve ethnic conflicts was rejected by both Ukraine
- and Azerbaijan.
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- The summit's failure to resolve any important questions,
- warned Kravchuk, meant that "the entire existence of the C.I.S.
- is questionable."
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