Gorbachev Bars Military Separatism by Republics

President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, warning that his country’s defense capabilities are under threat, decreed Saturday that rebellious Soviet republics no longer can be allowed to challenge Moscow’s military policy, particularly by interfering with conscription.

Gorbachev’s decree came in reaction to attempts by governments in the Soviet Union’s 15 constituent republics to establish their own armies or to limit the military service of their youth to their own territory.

It was his latest step in a concerted effort to appease the 4-million-member armed forces, which have complained ever more vocally in recent months that they are losing public respect and that the government tolerates far too much from upstart local leaders.

But in another move certain to anger the military, leaders of the three Baltic republics, meeting Saturday in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, formally urged Soviet “occupation forces” to withdraw from their territory and said civilians will protest their presence as long as they remain.

“We also urge the officers of the Soviet Union never to raise their weapons against our peaceful citizens,” said the resolution, signed by the presidents of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

The Baltic leaders were responding in part to a decree Gorbachev issued Tuesday authorizing soldiers to use force if attacked. Arms depots have been repeatedly raided by militants seeking arms in the southern Soviet republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, and protesters in the Baltics have attempted several blockades of military areas.

The trigger for Saturday’s decree, however, appeared to be the decision last month by the Parliament of the Ukraine that the republic’s soldiers would serve only within the republic. The Ukraine provides nearly 20% of Soviet soldiers, including a large proportion of noncommissioned officers,

“All this has a negative effect on the formation of the personnel of the Soviet armed forces,” Gorbachev’s decree said. “It threatens vitally important issues of the Soviet state’s defense capability.”

The turnout for the draft this year has been miserable, according to recent reports, with only small proportions of draftees showing up in Armenia, the western Ukraine, the Baltics and other areas where nationalist sentiment runs high.

Defense Minister Dmitri T. Yazov, in a newspaper interview published Saturday, complained particularly about the Baltic governments. He said they encourage their youths not to serve and are “seeking open confrontation with the troops of the Baltic military region.”

The Parliament of Latvia voted Nov. 14 to cut off services to the army bases in the republic to encourage the troops to leave.

“Winter is beginning, and they threaten us: ‘We’ll cut off the light, heat and water,’ ” Yazov told Komsomolskaya Pravda, the youth newspaper.

The defense minister said he is even more concerned, however, about republic laws on territorial armies and the formation of local, technically illegal militias.

“They gather the kids in some kind of bands, without any discipline, without any order,” he said. “They try to get weapons, by stealing, robbing or attacks on warehouses. Is this how armies are formed?

“I’m most concerned that young people are becoming the hostages of ambitious politicians who don’t realize what will come tomorrow.”

Armed militias in Armenia submitted to a new, nationalist government this year only after an armed standoff and prolonged negotiations. Moldova, a small republic in the southwest splintered by ethnic unrest, has similar renegade groups.

The popular governments of the Russian Federation, the Ukraine, Byelorussia and the Baltic republics all claim the right to their own armies or at least home service for their youths.

Zviad Gamsakhurdia, the radical new president of Georgia, announced last week that his republic should have not only its own army but its own Black Sea fleet.

To stop such demands, Gorbachev’s decree invalidated all republic laws that contradict the Soviet constitution, which allocates defense functions to the central government.