Black Sea Fleet Is Russia’s, Not Ukraine’s, Yeltsin Asserts : Commonwealth: President’s decree sharpens conflict but also leaves room for an eventual compromise.

MOSCOW —  Rejecting Ukraine’s attempt to take over the powerful Soviet Black Sea Fleet, Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin retaliated Tuesday with his own decree declaring it to be Russia’s, thus bringing the two Slavic states into full confrontation in asserting their new sovereignty and independence.

Yeltsin said the emotion-charged conflict with Ukraine “gives much cause for concern,” but his decree left hope for negotiations, the division of the huge fleet and an eventual compromise.

Ukraine, however, stepped up its pressure on Russia, grounding the Black Sea Fleet’s air wing to demonstrate its control and ultimate sovereignty and sending two officials from Kiev to the fleet headquarters in Sevastopol to deliver the decree with which President Leonid Kravchuk had claimed the fleet on Monday.

Yeltsin, in response, ordered the fleet’s 345 surface ships and 28 submarines to hoist the Cross of St. Andrew, the traditional banner of the Russian navy, in a demonstration of their loyalty to Moscow.

And Adm. Igor Kasatonov, the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, made clear that his allegiance is military, not political. “I am a military man,” he told the Ukrainian envoys with a tart economy of language. “Therefore, I follow the orders of my senior.”

Kasatonov told journalists in Sevastopol that he sees the dispute over the fleet as political, an issue to be resolved by Yeltsin and Kravchuk, and will wait for instructions from Air Marshal Yevgeny I. Shaposhnikov, commander in chief of the Commonwealth of Independent States’ armed forces.

Yeltsin, under attack from former Communists and other conservatives on a variety of issues, toughened his stand Tuesday not only to counter Kravchuk in his attempt to seize the fleet for Ukraine but also to counter challenges to his authority within the Congress of People’s Deputies, Russia’s Parliament.

“This decree on the Black Sea Fleet will give Yeltsin the votes of ‘patriots’ in the Congress,” Galina Starovoitova, a senior Yeltsin adviser, said, referring to hard-liners who are pressing Yeltsin on many issues. “But it is a step toward the Yugoslav-ization of relations between Ukraine and Russia.”

The confrontation will increase the strains within the Commonwealth, which groups Russia, Ukraine and nine other former Soviet republics, and could quickly reduce it to a shell.

“Russo-Ukrainian relations are white-hot again,” Russian Television said in a commentary Tuesday evening. “We have a vicious circle--tough statements of one side result in even tougher actions by the other. . . . The problem’s acuteness demands official talks between Moscow and Kiev.”

The conflicting Russian and Ukrainian decrees had no immediate military effect, however, for the fleet remained under the command of Kasatonov and ultimately of Shaposhnikov. Under Yeltsin’s decree, the fleet will be financed by Russia but remain under Commonwealth command.

With tensions growing between Russia and Ukraine and both as inclined to escalate as to negotiate, the outlook is uncertain; meanwhile, nationalist pressures are building rapidly on both Yeltsin and Kravchuk.

Most of the Black Sea Fleet’s captains are believed to be loyal to Moscow, and in a showdown they would probably put to sea if Yeltsin so ordered.

But Ukraine controls their supplies and thus could impede their operations; moreover, most officers’ families live on naval bases around Sevastopol.

In his decree, Yeltsin told the Russian Foreign and Defense ministries to begin early negotiations on the fleet’s future--which ships Russia and Ukraine will get and then the conditions for the continued deployment of the Russian vessels at Ukrainian ports as part of the Commonwealth forces.

Ukraine has claimed all the ships based at its ports, but Russia sees the fleet as a strategic force that should remain under Commonwealth control because of its nuclear armaments and its ability to project power into the Mediterranean Sea and the Middle East.

Russian Television, quoting “Western estimates,” on Tuesday put the value of the Black Sea Fleet and associated shore facilities at $150 billion.

Yeltsin earlier told the Congress of People’s Deputies that, with recent developments, his government had abandoned hope of retaining unified armed forces within the Commonwealth and had decided to establish its own army, navy and air force.

The Russian forces are expected to number about 1.5 million, Yeltsin said, reflecting a cut of 700,000 from the troops that Russia inherits once Soviet forces are shared with other republics and troops return from abroad.

“Russia took a long time to decide to form its own army, hoping until the last moment to preserve the single Commonwealth army,” Yeltsin said, “but we did not manage to do that.”

In Washington, the Bush Administration appealed to Russia and Ukraine to find a peaceful solution to the dispute. A senior official said the Administration believes that Yeltsin and Kravchuk made their twin declarations largely as a negotiating tactic and that hostilities are unlikely to break out.

Secretary of State James A. Baker III said the United States will try to stay out of the Russian-Ukrainian disputes. He also urged Ukraine to keep its promise to move its short-range nuclear weapons into Russia by July 1--and warned that, if it fails to do so, the United States will cut its economic aid.

Ukraine moved about half the 1,275 tactical nuclear weapons once on its territory into Russia, but then suspended the shipments, complaining that Russia was not dismantling the arms it received.

Meanwhile, Ukraine won preliminary approval Tuesday for membership in the International Monetary Fund, a key step to enable the republic to receive large-scale Western financial aid.

Times staff writer Doyle McManus in Washington contributed to this article.