Ukrainians See A-Arms as Lever for Independence : Soviet crisis: The republic’s 200 ICBMs may help win separation from Moscow and Western recognition.

In an accelerating rush toward independence from the crumbling Soviet Union, Ukrainians have discovered a nuclear bargaining chip in their arsenal of arguments for freedom.

There are 200 intercontinental ballistic missiles in the Ukraine, a senior army officer disclosed Wednesday.

And with both the Russian Federation and the West eager for disposal of the missiles, Ukrainians hope that their nuclear potential will prove persuasive in ensuring their break from Moscow and gaining recognition from the Western countries at which the rockets are aimed.

Ukrainians and their nationalist leaders insist that escape from the Soviet Union will be peaceful. Many within the swelling ranks of secessionists, still traumatized by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident in their republic, want the strategic weapons simply packed up and shipped back to Moscow.

But, in what promises to be a tough battle for an independence that has eluded the Ukraine for centuries, even a subtle hint that the republic might keep the missiles could speed an agreement on long-wished-for statehood.

“We must enter negotiations that include the United Nations Security Council, Russia, the other nuclear states and whatever is left of the central government to resolve this issue openly and with the participation of the world community,” said Ivan Zayets, a prominent deputy to the Ukrainian Supreme Soviet (legislature), referring to the fate of the strategic missiles.

But he added, “If it were up to me, I’d keep the weapons so that the world would take us seriously.”

The Ukraine, with 52 million citizens and a territory larger than France, is the Soviet Union’s second-most populous republic and a vital link in the economic chain. Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk signed an accord with the Russian Federation a week ago that pledged cooperation in resolving crucial issues related to defense and the economy.

Kravchuk and Russian Vice President Alexander Rutskoi called for reform of the Soviet armed forces and creation of a collective security system, according to a vague communique issued about the agreement reached in Kiev.

No binding commitment to let Soviet or Russian authorities decide the fate of the nuclear weapons in the Ukraine was clear from the communique, and non-Communist politicians contend that Kravchuk overstepped his authority when he signed the agreement on the Ukraine’s behalf.

Further, in a move that has made many Ukrainians nervous, Russian Federation President Boris N. Yeltsin has been pressuring other Soviet republics to refrain from seceding while working to ensure that Russia remains the dominant power in a new confederated Soviet Union.

The Russian leader, whose influence has surged in the wake of last month’s failed Kremlin coup, told an extraordinary session of the Soviet Parliament this week that Russia would be the “guarantor” of the Kremlin’s nuclear arsenal.

About 80% of the Soviet Union’s estimated 27,000 nuclear warheads are deployed in the Russian Federation. But the Ukraine has at least half of the rest. Among those weapons are 200 strategic missiles, Col. Vitaly Lazorkin, a senior member of the Ukraine’s emerging military hierarchy, told The Times Wednesday. Those rockets, SS-19s, can carry up to six warheads and have a range in excess of 6,000 land miles, with many capable of reaching Western Europe and America’s key allies.

“The people who direct the strategic forces during this transitional period should be a coalition in which the Ukraine’s voice is decisive,” Lazorkin said. “The future of the Ukraine’s nuclear arsenal is a matter that must be negotiated with the independent republic’s participation as an equal member with Russia and other nuclear powers.”

In what may have been an attempt to boost his image as the broker of power within the troubled Kremlin, Yeltsin told Cable News Network on Tuesday that nuclear weapons were already being moved to his republic from the Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Yeltsin also has called for unified armed forces within the proposed confederation of independent Soviet states, but has made clear that he envisions a Russian finger on the nuclear trigger.

Probably worried by Yeltsin’s growing political clout, and his veiled threat to renew Russian territorial claims against the Ukraine, leaders in Kiev appeared to be taking a more defiant attitude toward nuclear arms.

The 450-member Ukrainian Supreme Soviet, dominated by Communists until the coup, established a new Defense Ministry this week and opened talks with the renegade Soviet army officers who support independence for the Ukraine.

The new minister of defense, Konstantin Morozov, was described by Lazorkin as “an upright and honest officer, a patriot,” suggesting that he, too, will oppose Russia’s insistence on a joint army.

The republic’s legislature has experienced a decided shift to the side of the nationalists since a hard-line Communist junta tried unsuccessfully to depose Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev on Aug. 19. With the party discredited by its role in the coup that failed two days later, Ukrainian Communists scurried to cast themselves as democratic reformers, joining the coalition opposition forces in taking up the secessionist cause of the grass-roots nationalist movement, Rukh.

The republic’s legislators declared the Ukraine’s independence on Aug. 24, after the coup failed and the Soviet government was disbanded for complicity in the putsch. The Ukrainian Communist Party was formally banned by the parliamentary presidium last Friday.

“A lot of deputies now want to stand on the side of Ukrainian sovereignty,” Rukh Chairman Ivan Drach said, explaining the sudden popularity of his non-Communist reform movement.

The Ukraine must negotiate with what remains of the Soviet defense hierarchy to determine how to fulfill the republic’s pledge to get rid of all nuclear weapons, Drach said: “In an extreme case, we would be willing to give all atomic weapons to Russia to avoid disturbing America and other Western countries. Let Gorbachev and Russia sit on the top of a nuclear rocket, not us.”

While Rukh’s leader appeared ready to concede control of the missiles to Moscow, some of the movement’s more radical Parliament members favor leaving their options open. “We do not want to go from being an instrument for use of nuclear weapons to being an instrument of other nuclear states,” said Stepan Khmara, a prominent deputy to the Ukrainian Supreme Soviet, calling for new disarmament talks.

Pavlo Movchan, a leader of the People’s Council that includes all non-Communist forces in the parliament, said the future of the republic’s nuclear stockpile is a subject for the independent Ukraine, the United Nations and other nuclear powers to decide.

For many Ukrainians who support full independence, the nuclear question is not even worth raising.

“Russia sent these rockets to us. We should send them back as soon as possible,” said Tatiana Karpenku, a 65-year-old retired baker among the hundreds of pro-independence demonstrators who rallied outside the Supreme Soviet on Wednesday.

Olga Shedra, also in the secessionist crowd, agreed that the Ukraine should be free of nuclear weapons but acknowledged their potential for leverage with Western governments that have been hesitant to support a free Ukraine.

Calling for U.S. recognition of the independence declaration, which is expected to win popular endorsement in a Dec. 1 referendum, Shedra predicted that the rockets would be influential.

“Bush has to recognize that the Ukraine is not just a pillar of Russia,” she said.