Russian Guards to Patrol Borders of 6 Former Soviet Republics

In a move that makes the separation of the former Soviet republics more concrete, President Boris N. Yeltsin announced Thursday that Russia will have guards to patrol its borders with Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Azerbaijan and Georgia, according to the Russian Itar-Tass news service.

Yeltsin also announced that customs checkpoints will be established at border crossings with those six newly independent countries.

The announcement highlighted the Russian leadership’s new standoffish attitude toward republics that are experiencing internal strife or are involved in political conflicts with Russia.

Russia also has common borders with the former Soviet republics of Belarus and Kazakhstan, the latter in Central Asia.

But Russia has strong, positive relations with those two countries and does not plan to place border patrols on its frontiers with them, according to Itar-Tass.

Several other members of the Commonwealth had earlier declared their intention to form their own border patrols.

Ukraine, Belarus, the southern republic of Moldova and the Central Asian republic of Uzbekistan are among them.

Yeltsin’s decision was another blow to the weakening economic ties among members of the Commonwealth of Independent States, a loose alliance created out of the wreckage of the old Soviet Union.

Earlier this year, the leaders of the member states had agreed to create a common customs territory, and commodities circulating within that territory were not to be subject to customs duties.

The new Russian border guards will take over at least some functions of the joint frontier forces of the Commonwealth, a body of 200,000 troops that now does border-patrol duty for the Commonwealth’s 11 member states. It also watches over the Commonwealth’s frontiers with the three Baltic states--Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia--and with Georgia. The four were all members of the old Soviet Union but are not members of the Commonwealth.

During the Soviet period, people from any of the republics could travel to the other republics without having to go through customs or border checkpoints.