6 Former Soviet States Now Opt for Own Armies : Military: Shaposhnikov says that only 5 of the 11 commonwealth members want to join in unified forces. But all agree on central nuclear command.

In a new sign of the rapid fragmentation of the Soviet military, acting Commander in Chief Yevgeny I. Shaposhnikov disclosed Saturday that only five of the 11 members of the new Commonwealth of Independent States want to join in a unified armed forces.

The other six, he said, want their own conventional armies, although all are agreed that nuclear forces should remain under a unified command.

Shaposhnikov appealed for a two-year transition period to allow the 3.7-million-strong Soviet military, the world’s largest, to regroup “without losses, tears and blood.”

But Ukraine, which began formation of its own army Friday, pushed ahead as assertively as ever on Saturday to create its own armed forces, prompting renewed protests from Russia and bringing an increasingly open dispute over possession of the Black Sea fleet closer to a head.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Konstantin Morozov told a Kiev news conference that Ukraine is intent on taking over the Black Sea fleet even though Russia has claims to it as well, and the admiral who commands it has thus far refused to turn it over.

“Our strategic line is that Ukraine is a seagoing power and should have its own fleet. And it will have one,” Morozov said, according to the Nezavisimaya Gazeta, or Independent Newspaper, news service.

In Moscow, however, the chairman of the Russian Parliament warned that the Russian Federation would not renounce its claims to the fleet so easily and hinted that such conflicts could tear apart the commonwealth that rose last month to take the place of the former Soviet Union.

Russia wants to be a good neighbor, Chairman Ruslan Khasbulatov said, “but that doesn’t mean that someone can seize our fleets and our armies without permission and try to bring them under their own jurisdiction and make them take oaths of loyalty.”

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry began asking Soviet troops on Ukrainian soil to swear allegiance to Ukraine beginning Friday and said all soldiers who refused to do so would be expected to serve elsewhere.

Morozov said that negotiations are already under way with other former Soviet republics for exchanging non-Ukrainian soldiers serving in the Ukraine for ethnic Ukrainians now serving in the other republics.

Khasbulatov and other Russian politicians have accused Ukraine of violating agreements reached at the last two meetings of commonwealth leaders by moving to claim the Black Sea fleet and forcing the issue of soldiers’ loyalty so quickly.

When the 11 leaders agreed Dec. 30 on future military arrangements, only Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Moldova were demanding their own conventional armies.

Since then, however, Belarus said it eventually wants to take over the troops on its territory, and Shaposhnikov disclosed Saturday that only the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan support the unified armed forces.

He also revealed that there are now three “suitcases” of nuclear launch controls--one in his possession, one held by Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, and one, formerly in the hands of the Soviet chief of staff, being held in reserve.

Shaposhnikov, in an interview with the Interfax news agency, did not specify when, or to whom, the third suitcase would be handed over.

The former Soviet air force marshal is currently making the rounds of the commonwealth countries trying to work out the shape of the future armed forces within the two-month period given to him. He is expected to arrive in Ukraine for extensive negotiations in the next two or three days.

Soviet press accounts of the Black Sea fleet dispute noted that the Ukrainian-Russian argument has left many seamen caught in the middle, unsure where their allegiance should be.

But in fact, the daily Izvestia noted, most don’t particularly care whose flag they fly--as long as they are paid.