2-Man Ukrainian Runoff Set as Returns Trickle In : Election: Incumbent, former prime minister will square off next month in presidential race.

Divided sharply over whether to look toward Europe or Russia, voters in this nation’s presidential election put incumbent Leonid Kravchuk ahead in the west, favored former Prime Minister Leonid Kuchma in the east and sent them into a two-man runoff next month.

Official returns Monday from 16 of 27 regions gave Kuchma 36% of the votes in Sunday’s election to 30% for Kravchuk, followed by five other candidates.

But that count was somewhat weighted toward Kuchma’s expected strongholds. A more complete unofficial tally by Rukh, a nationalist movement that didn’t field a candidate, put Kravchuk ahead of Kuchma 40% to 35%.

Complete returns, expected today, may give a clearer picture of who will lead this nuclear-armed former Soviet republic of 52 million people for the next four years. Political analysts said any first-round lead by Kravchuk would be hard to overcome in the runoff because the president, who is weighing a possible Cabinet shake-up, is better positioned to bargain for support from also-rans.

Olexander Moroz, socialist chairman of the Parliament elected last spring, was running third in the official count with 15% of the presidential vote.

That put him in a position to press his demand for supreme power for the legislative branch, dominated by centrists and Communists determined to slow even the timid free-market reforms backed by Kravchuk and Kuchma.

The deal-making in days ahead may also involve Volodymyr Lanovoy, the only radical free-market reformer in the presidential race, who was running fourth with 10% of the vote. By law, the runoff must be held by July 10.

A former Communist apparatchik, Kravchuk, now 60, led Ukraine to independence from the Soviet Union 2 1/2 years ago and has steered a cautious course between Russia and the West while presiding over bouts of hyper-inflation, industrial depression and growing unemployment.

But in recent months he has moved decisively to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s “Partnership for Peace,” sign an accord with the European Union, begin dismantling Ukraine’s nuclear arsenal and draft economic reforms that would bring the country $700 million in credits from the International Monetary Fund.

Voters in western Ukraine, stronghold of the independence movement, applauded these moves and rewarded Kravchuk with 70% to 80% of the vote in their regions.

Kuchma, 55, former director of the Soviet Union’s largest missile factory, argued that Kravchuk cut economic ties with Moscow too soon after the Soviet Union collapsed and that restoring them would boost Ukraine’s fortunes. He ran first in industrialized, Russian-speaking regions east of the Dnieper River, where poverty has soured sentiment for independence. He also got 82% of the vote in Crimea, in southern Ukraine, where a pro-Russian separatist movement came to power in regional elections last spring.

Political passions ran so high that 68% of Ukraine’s 38 million voters turned up at the polls. But Kravchuk ran stronger in the eastern Russian-speaking areas than Kuchma did in the west.

The president made a late campaign swing through the east, trying to neutralize his challenger’s appeal by offering to make Russian an official language.

He also exploited fears in the rest of the country that Kuchma is too pro-Russian to prevent the absorption of eastern Ukraine into a political federation ruled from Moscow.

Many Ukrainian politicians say that fear is exaggerated, and so is the east-west rift. Except for Crimea, Ukraine’s Russian-speaking areas are led by politicians with no desire to join Russia.

“No matter who is elected president, he will have to establish normal relations with Russia,” said Volodymyr Cherniak, a Rukh leader.

Rukh was the only political movement to declare its position for the runoff. Cherniak told reporters that Rukh leaders would offer to support Kravchuk if he agreed to promote a new constitution, strengthen the presidency’s powers and hold the line on Ukrainian statehood.

Times special correspondent Mary Mycio contributed to this report.