Russian Role in Moldova Worries U.S. : Diplomacy: The Administration sends signals to Moscow over troop involvement.

The Bush Administration is using diplomatic channels to signal to Moscow its mounting concern over the involvement of Russian troops in separatist fighting in Moldova, senior officials said Tuesday.

The officials said that U.S. diplomats have urged the Russians to restrain their troops from combat and they made clear that the Administration believes Moscow maintains some control over the 14th Army units involved in fighting that has left more than 300 dead.

The quiet pressure campaign contrasts sharply with public statements by the White House and State Department, which have left unchallenged Russian assertions that only renegade units are engaged in the battles.

“These are not chummy or friendly,” one senior official said of the private tone adopted by the Administration. “They say, ‘Hey, let’s get this problem solved.’ ”

In a White House briefing earlier Tuesday, Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater described the unrest in Moldova as a matter of “great concern” to the United States. He characterized “ethnic violence and trouble” among the new states of the former Soviet Union as “a very serious matter.”

But Fitzwater refused to say that the United States had issued any warnings or admonitions to Russia. And Secretary of State James A. Baker III chose in a separate appearance before a congressional committee to quote a Russian general’s statement, blaming the fighting on 14th Army units no longer under his control.

Administration officials said the juxtaposition of the public comments and private efforts reflected a reluctance to embarrass the government of Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin after his meeting last week with President Bush. That meeting sealed an arms control treaty in which Russia agreed to sweeping cuts in its nuclear arsenal; some U.S. officials described the muted Administration reaction to events in Moldova as a gesture of reciprocity.

“You’ve got to take the picture as a whole,” another source said. “And we’re just not going to say anything publicly.”

Nevertheless, Administration sources said that private American efforts to pressure Russia to disengage from Moldova had grown increasingly assertive in recent days.

Russian soldiers are reported to have intervened on behalf of Slavic separatists in their fight against the Moldovan army. The scenario raises what for the Administration is the nightmarish specter of a clash between the armed forces of mighty Russia and those of a tiny new state.

A senior official said a message relayed to Russian officials by U.S. diplomats in Moscow could be summarized as: “This is not a healthy pattern here. And what we hope to see you all do is enter into a good-faith negotiating process and the sooner the better.”

Reports from the strife-torn Dniester region of Moldova said that fighting between the separatists and ethnic Moldovans appeared to have subsided after bloody battles believed to have left 1,000 people killed or wounded since Friday, Administration officials said. But they warned that the continuing presence of Russian troops amid “an ongoing conflict” in Moldova raises an “unnerving specter for a quick flare-up.”

The 14th Army troops involved in the fighting are part of a former Soviet unit that reverted to Russian authority. The troops still occupy a base in Moldova, despite its declaration of independence, and the Administration is encouraging Russia and Moldova to reach an agreement that would permit the withdrawal of the forces.