…UKRAINE:

President Leonid Kuchma yesterday cabled Boris Yeltsin to describe the Duma action as "a serious threat to relations among CIS countries in general and to Russian-Ukrainian relations in particular." Kuchma assured Yeltsin of "full support in his determined effort to uphold Russian statehood and continue democratic reforms." ["Russian statehood" implies repudiation of the USSR.] Ukrainian foreign minister Hennady Udovenko endorsed Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze’s call for an emergency CIS summit (see below) on the condition that it "once again and more emphatically affirms the position expressed by a number of CIS leaders in their statements." Kiev evidently wants to avoid a situation in which the leaders of Belarus and Tajikistan would be able to dilute the CIS summit’s condemnation of the Russian Duma resolutions.