UKRAINE, COMPLYING WITH CFE, SEEKS WITHDRAWAL OF RUSSIAN GROUND FORCES.

Ukrainian officials said at briefings in Kiev and Moscow that Ukraine has completed the reduction of its armored-personnel-carrier and combat-aviation inventories to levels mandated by the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty. Battle tanks will be down to quota levels by month’s end. But Mykola Makarevich, Ukraine’s representative to the CFE consultative group (which deals with implementation), and Foreign Ministry arms control department chief Volodymyr Balashiv said at the briefings that Ukraine is not in a position to eliminate the combat hardware of Russia’s Crimea-based coastal defense division and marine brigade.

These last remaining Russian ground forces on Ukrainian territory, formally attached to the Black Sea Fleet, have 271 tanks, 749 armored vehicles, and 208 artillery systems, officially counted as Ukrainian but in reality under Russian control. According to the officials, Kiev’s appeals to the Russian authorities to eliminate or withdraw this equipment along with the ground units have remained fruitless. They pointed out that the problem has international