U.S. Finally Opening Consulate in Ukraine : Diplomacy: Afghan invasion stalled action. The move is sign of importance of huge Soviet republic.

After 15 years of diplomatic wrangling, the United States is opening a consulate this month in the Ukrainian capital, drawing cheers from independence activists who are courting Western support.

U.S. officials, wary of stirring trouble for President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, say the consulate’s opening does not mean diplomatic recognition or support for an independent Ukraine, the second most populous of the 15 Soviet republics.

“It’s not our policy to confer recognition if the matter hasn’t been resolved by the Soviets themselves,” said a Western diplomat in Moscow who asked not to be identified.

U.S. officials note that, if the Soviet Union had not invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the consulate might have been opened a decade ago, when few people could have conceived of Ukrainian secession.

France and Germany, which already have consulates in Kiev, have remained neutral in the fray over independence.

Behind the diplomatic tiptoeing is a clear U.S. recognition that the Ukraine is an industrial and agricultural powerhouse of 52 million people whose future is important to the West.

If it breaks away from the Soviet Union, it will be Europe’s largest country in territory and fifth largest in population, after Germany, Italy, Britain and France.

Ukrainian independence activists welcome the opening of Western missions.

“Without question, we need Western contacts,” said poet Ivan Drach, chairman of the Rukh independence movement. “We particularly need people who are here permanently, who can see and understand what is going on, because truth and knowledge are our only weapons.”

The U.S. State Department originally decided to open the consulate in the 1970s in an exchange that involved opening a Soviet consulate in New York. It sent a 15-person advance team to Kiev and invested about $1 million in renovations to three buildings for offices and housing.

When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December, 1979, however, President Jimmy Carter retaliated by cutting off government-sponsored exchanges, boycotting the Moscow Olympics and canceling plans for the consulate.

Two U.S. diplomats, Consul General Jon Gundersen and Consul John Stepanchuk, are scheduled to move to Kiev in late February. At first, they will work out of their apartments.