UKRAINE TO DO WITHOUT RUSSIAN HELP IN BUILDING TANKS FOR PAKISTAN.

Ukrainian defense minister Col. Gen. Oleksandr Kuzmuk said yesterday that Ukraine would fulfill its commitment to supply 320 T-80UD tanks to Pakistan by itself attempting to produce the components that are being manufactured in Russia. Last week Oleg Sidorenko of the Russian state-owned arms export company Rosvooruzhenie had declared that "not a single cannon, not a single fire control system, not a single battery can be officially exported from Russia to Ukraine" for the tanks. Sidorenko observed, however, that some of these components can still be found in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland following the withdrawal of Soviet troops. Kuzmuk also mentioned these same three countries as possible sources for the T-80UD components "on a mutually advantageous basis." Pakistan showed the first batch of 15 T-80UD tanks received from Ukraine at the March 23 Independence Day military parade in Islamabad.

The foreign sales of Soviet military equipment by other members of the CIS has been especially galling to Moscow. Although Russia sent a large contingent to the recent arms show in Abu Dhabi it has yet to announce any sales. Ukraine, on the other hand, signed a $610,000 contract to supply the first batch of an order for BTR-50 armored personnel carriers to Indonesia. This tracked, amphibious troop carrier has been around since the late 1950s and is no longer in the Ukrainian military inventory. (Interfax-Ukraine, March 24, Interfax, March 21)

Georgia Redefines Conditions for Peacekeeping In Abkhazia.