Ukrainians Flex Their Military Muscle : Soviet Union: Legislators vote to bar the transfer of nuclear arms to Russia. Washington and Moscow are both concerned.

The sudden possibility of a new major military power emerging in Europe--the Ukraine--has jeopardized plans for a Soviet political union and alarmed Moscow and Washington about a dangerous tilt in the strategic balance.

In the Ukraine’s latest attempt at making its weight felt in the military sphere, the Supreme Soviet, its legislature, adopted a declaration Thursday in effect barring the transfer of intercontinental ballistic missiles and other nuclear arms based in the Ukraine to the Russian Federation, as the Soviet military desires.

The legislature’s statement asserts the Ukraine’s right of control over “non-use” of the weapons--evidently under a “double-key” system with the Soviet central leadership--and its right to implement a policy of liquidating them.

On Tuesday, a day after Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev condemned the republics’ attempts at “nationalizing” military property, the legislature in principle approved the creation of an armed forces of the Ukraine, a force that could total 420,000 men within four years.

Although the draft law on the armed forces and related bills were sent back to committees for more work, the notion that the Ukraine, second only among Soviet republics to Russia in its riches and population, might acquire its own army, navy and air force provoked a storm in comment in Moscow.

Of great concern was the Ukraine’s uncertain attitude about the nuclear weapons based there. Thursday’s declaration makes it clear that the Ukraine’s ultimate intent is to become “nuclear free” but that it also opposes any unilateral decisions Moscow might make to move the arms out.

Quizzed about his reaction to the law on the Ukrainian armed forces, the Soviet Defense Ministry’s top spokesman, Lt. Gen. Valery L. Manilov, affected an air of serenity, but he left no doubt that the Soviet brass expects the estimated 1.5 million soldiers, sailors and fliers stationed in the republic to ignore any orders issued by Kiev.

As to who by right commands the units now in the Ukraine, he said: “Our armed forces, including the troops in the Ukraine, are to carry out the orders of the U.S.S.R. president, as commander in chief, and the general staff.”

The Bush Administration has reacted with displeasure at the idea of a separate Ukrainian military, saying it contradicts the spirit of the times and expressing concern about the consequences.

Some Moscow-based officials view the latest votes by Ukrainian lawmakers as political grandstanding as this republic’s Dec. 1 presidential election draws closer.

“I think these issues are being dealt with so sharply because of the election campaign,” Yegor V. Yakovlev, chairman of the Soviet state broadcasting company Gosteleradio, told foreign correspondents in Moscow.

Other officials are worried about the long-term implications of the Ukraine’s actions and their effect on plans by Gorbachev and Yeltsin to salvage an inter-republic political accord.

If individual republics are allowed to assume command of nuclear arms on their turf, “in the world community we will become a power immensely more dangerous than Saddam Hussein,” warned Vladimir P. Lukin, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Russian Federation legislature.

Thursday’s vote by the Supreme Soviet pledges Ukrainian observance of the U.S.-Soviet Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) and proposes negotiations with Soviet officials and other “nuclear republics”-- Kazakhstan, Belarus (formerly Byelorussia) and Russia--on dismantling nuclear weapons. The legislature’s resolution says the Ukraine will ensure the safe stationing of nuclear weapons already based in the republic until they can be dismantled, phrasing that would rule out their removal to Russia.

The chief of the Soviet armed forces general staff, Gen. Vladimir N. Lobov, supports that option, citing the danger of allowing arms of such destructive might to escape from Moscow’s control.

According to Ukrainian leader Leonid Kravchuk, there are 178 land-based ICBMs on Ukrainian territory, of which 130 are to be eliminated over the next seven years under START. The Pentagon says the republic also has large stockpiles of tactical nuclear arms.

Mary Mycio, a free-lance reporter in Kiev, contributed to this story.