Ukraine Wants More Aid, Holds Up Nuclear Treaties : Disarmament: Kiev has yet to ratify START I. It’s virtually a shakedown, U.S., Russian diplomats say.

When the presidents of America and Russia raised champagne toasts this week in Moscow to the boldest U.S.-Russian nuclear arms reduction pact ever, they omitted some important people from the guest list: the Ukrainians.

The fate of the START II treaty signed Sunday and the reduction of superpower arsenals as a whole now lie in the hands of elected officials in this hilly capital on the Dnieper River.

In large part, Ukrainians say, the problem is financial. Its economy wrecked by a hyper-nationalistic policy that Prime Minister Leonid Kuchma this week lambasted as akin to having declared war on Russia, Ukraine now wants much more than the $175 million the American government is offering to defray the costs of nuclear disarmament.

“Ukraine is in a state of illness, which it developed during the Cold War. It’s like the plague,” explained Vladimir Krzhizhanovsky, ambassador to Moscow. “And we tell the world community, ‘If you do not want us to spread the infection, then you must help us recover.’ ”

But to hear exasperated American and Russian diplomats tell it, Ukrainians have mounted nothing less than a shakedown operation to obtain more aid in exchange for a formal commitment to disarm.

The problem is this: The treaty signed Sunday by President Bush and Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, which would reduce their countries’ strategic arsenals by two-thirds, does not affect 1,656 former Soviet warheads on strategic bombers and missiles still deployed in this France-sized nation. For that pact to take effect, the earlier START I treaty, signed in 1991, must be ratified by all parties concerned. Ukraine is one.

Lawmakers in the United States, Russia and Kazakhstan have approved START I. But their counterparts in the two remaining former Soviet “nuclear” republics, Belarus and Ukraine, have not--despite a pledge last May from their governments to do so.

Belarus, based on what its leaders have told American envoys, will not be a problem.

But Ukraine is, because of the erratic line taken by its leaders, including President Leonid M. Kravchuk. His government now appears to have used up its goodwill in Washington and Moscow.

Since Tuesday, Deputy Foreign Minister Boris Tarasiuk has been in Washington on what may be an impossible mission: to try to justify Ukraine’s position to the Americans. In December, a Western diplomat based here revealed, Kravchuk offered his personal assurances that START would be ratified before the end of 1992 by the Supreme Rada. But it was not even put on the legislature’s agenda.

Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger has said that if the Supreme Rada does not ratify the treaty soon, it will damage the overall U.S.-Ukraine relationship. But State Department spokesman Richard Boucher sought Thursday to put a positive gloss on Tarasiuk’s meetings with Undersecretary of State Frank Weisner and other American officials.

“The United States is prepared to meet the Ukrainian president’s request for assistance and has informed Ukraine that we are prepared to provide assistance worth at least $175 million” to help finance the destruction of nuclear weapons, once the Kiev government ratifies START and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Boucher said.

Boucher said Washington recognizes Ukrainian security concerns and is prepared to talk about them. But he said nothing has been settled on that issue.

Last February, Kravchuk vowed that Ukraine would get rid of its nuclear weapons “without setting any conditions.” But now, government officials estimate at $1.5 billion the aggregate cost of destroying silos, scrapping ICBM boosters, disposing of toxic rocket fuel and shipping warheads back to Russia for dismantling.

From Russia, Ukrainians specifically want compensation for turning over enriched uranium and plutonium in the warheads, which the Russians plan to sell to the Americans.

Ukrainians are irked at having forked over all tactical nuclear weapons based in this country last year and getting not a single dollar or ruble in return from Russia. “At the same time, we are buying enriched uranium (for nuclear power plants) from it at full price,” Kravchuk complained this week.

Being too broke to pay its own way under START isn’t Kiev’s only worry; giving up armaments while remaining the neighbor of one of the world’s mightiest nuclear powers is another concern.

The ICBMs and bombers deployed in Ukraine are controlled from Moscow, with Kravchuk claiming he has installed a system that allows him to veto their use. Some Kiev lawmakers say Ukraine should give serious thought to going further and becoming an independent nuclear power. For the United States and Russia, that is unacceptable.

Times staff writer Dahlburg reported from Moscow, and Times special correspondent Mycio reported from Kiev. Times staff writer Norman Kempster, in Washington, contributed to this report.