3 Republics Block Unified Military : Commonwealth: Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova go their separate ways. Others join Russia in single force. The 11-state bloc is now mainly an economic union.

The Commonwealth of Independent States ceased to exist as a unified military bloc on Friday after Russia failed to dissuade Ukraine and two other republics from breaking away to establish their own separate armies.

Through 10 hours of often heated, emotional discussions with other Commonwealth leaders, Ukraine’s President Leonid Kravchuk remained staunch in his commitment to raise a Ukrainian army as a symbol and guarantor of his nation’s emergence as an independent state.

“United armed forces can exist only in a united state,” Kravchuk said, as he arrived here for a one-day Commonwealth summit. “If there are united armed forces, it will spell the end of democracy because the army would stand above all the states.”

Azerbaijan and Moldova similarly refused to join a post-Soviet military alliance, reaffirming their intent to create their own armies. Two other republics, Belarus and Uzbekistan in Central Asia, said they would join for a transitional period. But they want their own armies in the future.

Friday’s meeting thus signaled the official dissolution of the 3.7-million-member Soviet armed forces, the world’s largest. For decades, they had intimidated the West with their sheer size.

The decision also further defined the Commonwealth as primarily an economic rather than a military union; Kravchuk said that substantial progress was made in resolving many of the disputes that have accelerated the disintegration of the former Soviet economy.

In the end, Russia was left with four Central Asian republics and Armenia as its only firm partners in transforming the former Soviet armed forces into those of the Commonwealth. Russia will dominate the force by virtue of its size, but it will also bear virtually all of its cost.

But Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin clearly considered it better to keep intact as much of the former Soviet military as possible to enhance his own country’s security and to assuage an angry officer corps that is starting to show signs of possible mutiny over the breakup of the former Red Army.

Kravchuk told a news conference after chairing the daylong meeting, “Today, two groups of states were clearly formed--those that are for united armed forces and those that will create their own armed forces.”

The sheer divisiveness of the military question left the Commonwealth’s future in considerable doubt on Friday.

Russia and Ukraine had failed to find common ground on the key issue of mutual security, with the implication left that Ukraine needs its own army to counter Russian pressure. Moscow’s view of Kravchuk as spoiler seems certain to grow now along with broad suspicions of Ukrainian intentions. And Yeltsin, who had committed his personal prestige in the fight, had tried to impose his will and failed.

With his team, Yeltsin--clearly exhausted--left the meeting without commenting to the press. He was to meet later with Kravchuk to discuss Russian-Ukrainian relations.

Air Marshal Yevgeny I. Shaposhnikov, the Commonwealth’s military commander in chief, told reporters that the summit had not been a failure. “I am satisfied,” he said. “Three states refused, eight signed--this is not a small number.”

The agreements signed here on Friday provide for the creation of the Commonwealth’s regular forces in eight of the 11 former Soviet republics that belong to the Commonwealth; Belarus and Uzbekistan agreed to participate for a two-year transitional period. Commonwealth leaders also confirmed their decision in December to establish a combined strategic force. It now includes the old Soviet nuclear arsenal; most of its air force and navy, and its air defenses, early warning and intelligence-gathering systems.

All are under the command of Shaposhnikov, who will have one deputy for the strategic forces, a second for the conventional forces and a third as chief of staff. The deputies are to be confirmed at the next Commonwealth summit in Kiev on March 20.

A Yeltsin spokesman had told reporters earlier in the day that Russia, despite calls by Yeltsin’s military advisers, favored a joint army over creating its own, even if several republics opted out of the Commonwealth force. “Ukraine can have its own armed forces, and so can the others,” said Alexei V. Novikov, a Yeltsin press secretary. “But, so far, the majority favor a united army.”

This would provide greater security for Russia and continued stability for the Commonwealth. It was also likely to prove cheaper than establishing 11 national armies, as some proposed.

But the continuing demand of angry Soviet officers to maintain the forces’ unity may have been the decisive factor in Yeltsin’s calculations; 70% of the officer corps is in Russia and their increased restiveness would greatly undermine his political position.

The political sensitivity of the military situation was dramatized by the “defection” on Thursday night of six Russian air crews who flew their SU-24 tactical bombers from their Ukrainian base to Russia, rather than swear allegiance to Ukraine. The planes were unarmed, but the crews carried their regimental flag with them.

In the heat of the day’s debates, Kravchuk distributed documents accusing Shaposhnikov of selling vessels from the former Soviet Navy’s Black Sea Fleet. “The ships are being sold at prices much cheaper than if they were sold for scrap metal,” Kravchuk said in disgust.

Other leaders criticized Shaposhnikov, who was promoted to commander-in-chief on Yeltsin’s nomination, for ordering troop movements in their republics without consulting them, participants in the meeting said. Despite the criticism, Shaposhnikov kept his post, again with Yeltsin’s backing.

The two republics that joined Ukraine in refusing to participate in the joint armed forces had different reasons for wanting their own armies.

Azerbaijan said it needed an army to halt the ethnic clashes that have raged for four years in and around Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan, where warfare has claimed more than 1,000 lives. “An undeclared war is going on,” said Rasim Agayev, an Azerbaijani spokesman. “If the center cannot stop this war, we need our own military.”

Belarus President Stanislav Shushkevich said his government can be part of joint armed forces only temporarily during a transition period; that is because Belarus’ sovereignty declaration states its intention to become a nuclear-free, neutral state.

The leaders of the 11 republics decided that their next meeting would take up another difficult issue: Who owns the property of the former Soviet Union? Ukraine and other republics are challenging Russia’s wholesale claims to vast Soviet holdings at home and abroad. Foreign ministers were instructed to prepare documents, based on the principle that all 11 states have the right to inherit the former Soviet property.

Participants in Friday’s meeting, which ran hours longer than planned, said that the talks broke down into emotional arguments many times, as some leaders asserted their nation’s newly won independence and others called for pragmatism by continuing former Soviet institutions through a transition period.

“In our country, we have gotten used to the fact that quick decisions are never reached,” said Seitcazy Matayev, a Kazakh spokesman. “Quick decisions were made when one person was making them, when we had a Communist Party with a general secretary. No one challenged him. Now we have democracy.”