Ukraine

Robert L. Walker, Maryland's secretary of agriculture since November 1991, resigned yesterday to take a job with the U.S. Department of Agriculture helping Ukrainian farmers improve production techniques and move to a free-market system.Mr. Walker has been appointed an agricultural policy adviser to the Ministry of Food and Agriculture in Ukraine, which was the breadbasket of the former Soviet Union. He will leave his state position in mid-April and begin his new job at the end of the month.

MOSCOW -- During a bitter political standoff, Ukraine's President Viktor A. Yushchenko issued a decree yesterday transferring control of Interior Ministry troops into his own hands and away from a minister loyal to his longtime rival, Prime Minister Viktor F. Yanukovich. The prime minister said the president's action was unconstitutional. Parliament, which is controlled by the prime minister's allies, passed a resolution declaring the decree legally void. It appeared, however, that Yushchenko had succeeded in firming up his authority over security forces, because the direct commander of the Interior Ministry troops, Gen. Oleksandr Kikhtenko, is considered his ally.

MOSCOW -- Officials in the Ukrainian city of Sevastopol decided to allow the asbestos-laden SS United States into port yesterday.The navy yard there will refurbish the sleek but decrepit ship in a job that will bring millions of badly needed dollars into the economy but that has sparked protests over its environmental hazards.The 41-year-old ocean liner, once the flagship of the U.S. trans-Atlantic fleet, had been kept out of port for several days while officials debated what to do.Owned now by Turkish and U.S. interests, the United States had been at a mooring in Turkey for more than a year, but no yard there would take on the work.

MOSCOW -- Ukraine's decision to sell its share of the disputed Black Sea Fleet and relinquish its nuclear warheads to Russia came under furious political assault yesterday, raising serious questions about whether the deal will stand.Ukrainian nationalists denounced the move as an act of "national betrayal" and demanded the resignation of President Leonid Kravchuk, who concluded the agreement in a meeting with Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin on Friday. Several Ukrainian Parliament members said they would try to block the deal when it comes up for legislative review, according to reports from Kiev by the Itar-Tass and Interfax news agencies.

WASHINGTON -- Ukraine's government has agreed to shut down the remaining nuclear reactors at its power plant in Chernobyl, which was heavily damaged in a catastrophic accident in 1986, the Clinton administration said yesterday.After three days of meetings with a U.S. delegation, Ukraine abandoned its insistence that nuclear production must continue at the plant, agreeing instead to a joint effort with the United States to find options such as energy conservation and nonnuclear power generation to replace electricity from the plant, which generates about 1,700 megawatts of power.

On a brisk April day in East Baltimore, laundry flapping like fresh spring flags, the sun lights up a tiny rowhouse that is ``TC jewel box of Ukrainian culture. Entering the home of John and Luba Rad, you are struck by the meticulous arrangements of folk embroidery, ceramics and wood carvings. There is a portrait of poet Taras Shevchenko and a mosaic of Cossack warrior Taras Bulba.What you notice most, however, are the eggs.Luba Rad holds an Easter egg as intricately detailed as an illuminated manuscript, colors sparkling like gems.

Kiev -- "If they make it through their fifth anniversary of independence, I think the present [bad] streak will be broken," ventures one of the many Ukrainian-Canadians in Kiev. He and fellow optimists think Ukraine probably can muddle through the remaining 2 1/2 years to his imagined deadline for creating critical momentum.Pessimists, by contrast, expect Ukraine to implode before then out of sheer incompetence, procrastination and entropy. And, of course, pressure from Russians across the political spectrum, who deem Ukrainian independence illegitimate after three centuries of union.

The Maryland Association of Family and Community Education (MAFCE), formerly the statewide Homemakers' Club organization, has collected clothing, coats, shoes and medical supplies for students of the School for the Blind in the city of Kharkov, in Ukraine.About 23 women folded, sorted and packed the materials Monday at the Brethren Service Center's distribution center in New Windsor, where items were bundled into 85-pound bales for shipping."This is representative of the whole state of Maryland.

MOSCOW - Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and Russian President Vladimir V. Putin held wide-ranging talks in Kiev yesterday as the Kremlin leader made his first visit to the Ukrainian capital since a pro-Western government came to power in January. Appearing at a joint news conference, the leaders played down strains in the two countries' relationship triggered by Ukraine's recent political crisis. They pledged to build stronger economic ties and settle lingering boundary disputes left from the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.

WASHINGTON -- Viktor A. Yushchenko's visit to Moscow on Monday, the day after his inauguration as Ukraine's third president, was a smart move. It is hoped that his talks with Russian President Vladimir V. Putin will constitute the first step toward a solid working relationship between the two. That relationship currently oozes tension. Mr. Yushchenko has made clear his goal of taking Ukraine into Europe and its institutions. Mr. Putin fears the consequence for Russia will be isolation.