Balkan Conflict Threatens U.S.-Russian Relationship : Diplomacy: White House tries to cool down rhetoric as Kremlin claims Bosnian raids border on ‘genocide.’

As Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin escalated his war of words against the allied bombing campaign in Bosnia on Tuesday, the Clinton Administration expressed growing concern that the Balkan conflict may upset the precarious post-Cold War relationship between Washington and Moscow.

In public, U.S. officials countered Russia’s inflammatory rhetoric with conciliatory words, describing the Russians as valued partners in the Balkan peace process and assuring Yeltsin that the United States and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies remain interested in his views even if not always persuaded by them.

“We’re going to try to stand above the fray a bit,” a senior Administration official said. “We’re not going to escalate the rhetoric. I think we can get through this.”

In an official statement issued through the Itar-Tass news agency Tuesday, the Russian government denounced the continued air strikes against Bosnian Serb targets as genocidal, and the Foreign Ministry demanded that the U.N. Security Council put a stop to the NATO actions.

“Being strongly opposed to brutal unilateral use of NATO military might in Bosnia against the Serb population, the Russian government declares it cannot remain indifferent to the tragic fate of the children of our brother Slavs,” the Kremlin said. “At issue is the very survival of the present generation of Bosnian Serbs, who are virtually threatened with genocide.”

Talking to reporters before a congressional meeting Tuesday in Washington, President Clinton took issue with the Russian statement.

“There has been no genocide there,” he said. “There has been an extraordinary amount of care and discipline, with firmness and strength, and they [the air raids] were appropriately done.”

State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns also took umbrage at the charge of genocide, arguing NATO is doing everything it can to avoid civilian casualties.

“NATO’s actions are aimed at stopping the innocent killing of civilians in Sarajevo and the other ‘safe areas,’ ” Burns said. “The Bosnian Serbs are responsible for unspeakable acts of barbarity, and they’re now paying for that.”

Burns declined to respond when asked whether he would compare Russia’s bloody suppression of Chechen separatists with NATO’s bombing in Bosnia-Herzegovina. And he insisted that the U.S.-Russian relationship “will withstand some of the disagreements that we are seeing right now on one aspect of the Balkan crisis. . . . The process of building a good relationship between Russia and the West in general, and Russia and the U.S. specifically, is a long process that’s evolutionary.”

But Administration officials privately conceded that they are worried the corrosive attitude in Moscow will do lasting damage to a relationship that has a far greater long-term importance than the ethnic conflict over the ruins of the former Yugoslav federation.

Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, the Administration’s ranking expert on Russia, will visit Moscow later this week to try to soothe Russian feelings and make sure lines of communication remain open.

A senior U.S. official said the decision to send Talbott was made Monday after it became clear that the U.S. Embassy had been unable to dampen Russian criticism.

“Sometimes you have to go to a higher level,” the official said.

The Kremlin’s angry statement Tuesday followed a veiled warning from the Defense Ministry that Russia might abrogate international security agreements unless the alliance stops bombing the Serbs. Russia also threatened to pull out of the Partnership for Peace program, a U.S.-devised link between NATO and the countries of the defunct Warsaw Pact.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher renewed U.S. vows that the bombing will continue until the Bosnian Serbs comply with U.N. resolutions that require the withdrawal of their heavy weapons from around Sarajevo.

“The point that I would stress is that it’s in the hands of the Bosnian Serbs as to when this campaign comes to an end,” Christopher told reporters as he began a 45-minute meeting with Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Granic.

Christopher urged Croatia to exhibit “flexibility and statesmanship” in talks over Eastern Slavonia, the only part of Croatia still occupied by Croatian Serb separatists.

Despite the threats and warnings from the Russian leadership, the results of a poll released Tuesday by the Russian research firm Opinion suggested a less vitriolic reaction at the popular level.

Most respondents in the telephone survey of nearly 1,000 Muscovites termed the NATO bombings in Bosnia “improper,” but their views toward the alliance remained largely unchanged from those expressed in a similar survey five months ago.

More than 41% of those questioned described NATO as friendly or neutral toward Russia, while 29.9% said they believe the alliance is hostile toward their country. The comparable figures from a poll in April showed 40.8% trusting NATO and 27.1% wary of it.

In another indication of divergence from the official line, the poll suggested fewer people now believe the events in the former Yugoslav republics are likely to escalate into a third world war than feared such a consequence three months ago--before NATO launched its drive to force the Serbs to lift their siege of Sarajevo.

Despite the poll results, U.S. officials suggested that Russia’s condemnation of the NATO air strikes was driven, at least in part, by domestic political considerations.

At a Russian Foreign Ministry briefing, spokesman Grigory Karasin said the Kremlin is demanding that the U.N. Security Council use its authority to halt the bloodshed unleashed by NATO.

Administration officials said Washington prefers to avoid an open dispute at the United Nations. But they said there is no danger that the Security Council will halt the NATO air campaign, because the United States, Britain and France have veto power.

Russian Foreign Minister Andrei V. Kozyrev has taken a more cooperative approach than other Russian officials toward the United States and NATO since their air strikes intensified more than a week ago. But that stance has isolated him in the role of potential scapegoat.

Yeltsin, now on vacation in the southern resort of Sochi, criticized the work of the Foreign Ministry during a news conference Friday, and deputies of the Duma, the lower house of Parliament, voted overwhelmingly Saturday to press for the ouster of Kozyrev.

Kempster reported from Washington and Williams from Moscow.