Russia Stakes Claim to Peacekeeping Role : Diplomacy: Moscow says U.S. has promised to stay out of conflicts in former Soviet republics.

A Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman hotly denied Friday that the United States would be playing any kind of special role in keeping the peace in the former Soviet Union.

Staking a firm claim to the collapsed Soviet empire as part of Russia’s sphere of influence, spokesman Mikhail Demurin said reports of U.S. plans to step up its attempts to mediate conflicts here carry “considerable distortions.”

He had been assured by U.S. officials, he said, that “the U.S.A. has no intentions of assuming mediator functions to resolve the conflicts on the territory of the former Soviet Union.”

Those conflicts range from the 5-year-old dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh to the Tajikistan civil war that is now showing a dangerous tendency to spill over the border into Afghanistan. Georgia is also racked by strife, mainly in the breakaway region of Abkhazia. Tens of thousands have died in ethnic and civil warfare across the former Soviet Union.

Clinton Administration officials reportedly said last week that they were planning more active diplomatic intervention in the conflicts.

That raised hackles in Moscow, which sees itself as the big brother whose military clout and security interests make it the natural peacemaker in the region. It is deploying troops in several trouble spots now, including Tajikistan and Abkhazia.

Russia has not objected to international help in solving the various conflicts now brewing. International observers are due to arrive in Abkhazia today to try to maintain a shaky cease-fire, and the Council on Security and Cooperation in Europe has been working to help resolve the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Demurin indicated that Russia had no objection to American participation through the United Nations and other joint efforts. But he made it clear that Russia takes “responsibility for maintaining stability within this entire region and the need for maintaining peace and prosperity.”

Demurin made a point of noting that American officials had assured him that forthcoming U.S. aid would not depend on Russia’s actions in the former Soviet Union.

Russia’s humiliating position as a former superpower that must stoop to handouts because of its economic troubles makes it especially sensitive to any hints of an American incursion into its territory.

So when reports came out last week that senior Clinton Administration officials were planning a more active role here--although it was not likely to include military involvement--Russian officials were aggrieved.

It did not help matters that the CIA’s station chief in Georgia, Fred Woodruff, was gunned down Sunday in an incident that called attention to the CIA’s role in backing Georgian leader Eduard A. Shevardnadze.

U.S. officials described the motives for their plans as wanting to keep Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin’s regime from becoming further destabilized and seeking to prevent unrest from spreading.

But even a hint of American encroachment drew a reaction from Russian patriots. At a rally Thursday, one woman carried a sign reading: “We don’t need President Yeltsin, the American agent.”