Gore, Kohl Pledge New Support for Russian Reforms : Diplomacy: Vice president prods German chancellor to loosen aid policy in bid to strengthen Russian democracy.

Vice President Al Gore and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, meeting amid mounting anxiety in Germany and Eastern Europe over resurgent Russian nationalism, pledged Saturday to seek new ways to cement and speed the democratic transformation in Russia.

In a two-hour session at Kohl’s home, Gore prodded the chancellor to loosen Germany’s tightfisted aid policy toward Russia, which the vice president said is suffering more severe economic hardship than that of America’s Great Depression of the 1930s.

Gore also stopped in Budapest on Saturday morning to pay respects to the family of late Hungarian Prime Minister Jozsef Antall, who died Dec. 12 of cancer, and to meet with his designated successor, Peter Boross.

While in the Hungarian capital, Gore met with Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk in an effort to broker a deal between Kiev and Moscow to dismantle Ukraine’s nuclear arsenal, but little progress was reported.

After their session, Gore and Kohl made public statements designed to project a unity of purpose and approach, but which revealed little of the substance of their discussion.

Addressing reporters following the meeting, Kohl said, “The success of the reform movement in Russia is our success, and it is all the more important in view of the strident remarks of those opposed to reform.”

Gore noted that it is critical that the two nations coordinate policy toward Russia, “particularly with so much going on in the world today.”

Privately, however, senior U.S. officials aboard Air Force Two said that Germany and other wealthy nations apparently do not appreciate the depth of the economic crisis in Russia nor the precarious political position of President Boris N. Yeltsin.

One top official said that Gore told Kohl that the conditions set by the International Monetary Fund for the release of Western aid are sound in theory, but are causing great suffering on the part of the Russian people.

The IMF has provided $2.5 billion so far to Russia, but has blocked $1.5 billion in additional aid until Moscow demonstrates that it can meet IMF conditions for taming inflation, controlling the currency and correcting a severe trade imbalance.

Gore briefed Kohl after a week in Russia and the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. The vice president met with Yeltsin and other top Russian leaders to try to assess the damage from last Sunday’s parliamentary elections, which saw ultranationalist leader Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky win a surprisingly large share of the popular vote.

Zhirinovsky has alarmed Germans with a number of menacing comments, including a threat to use nuclear weapons against Germany and a proposal to split Poland with the Germans in a reprise of the Hitler-Stalin pact of 1939.

Gore reportedly told Kohl that Washington believes Zhirinovsky will have limited influence in the new Russian Parliament and that Yeltsin will be able to craft a governing coalition on some issues, but will face deadlock on others.

Addressing the anxiety felt across Eastern Europe about Zhirinovsky’s rise, Gore said that the United States and its NATO allies would try to find some way to reassure former Warsaw Pact countries that the alliance would come to their aid. But the United States remains opposed to full NATO membership for Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and other former Soviet satellites.

The two men also discussed a U.S. plan that would expand the North Atlantic Cooperation Council, made up of the 16 NATO nations, to include Eastern European states.

President Clinton will press the plan during the annual North Atlantic Treaty Organization meeting, set for Jan. 10-11 in Brussels.

On his visit to the Hungarian capital, Gore conducted a hastily arranged meeting with Kravchuk as part of a continuing American effort to break a stalemate over Ukraine’s 1,800 nuclear weapons, which came under Ukrainian control after the breakup of the Soviet empire.

Gore would not say whether the meeting produced any progress.

But in Kiev, the government said U.S., Russian and Ukrainian negotiators had made some progress toward dismantling the arms.

Reuters news service said the parties reached a preliminary agreement on compensation for giving up weapons. No figures were mentioned and consultations were to continue.