ZAGREB -- UN inquiries into black marketeering and other abuses by its personnel in the former Yugoslavia are focusing on Russian peacekeepers in a Serb-held enclave of Croatia, officials said Tuesday.


A United Nations Protection Force, or UNPROFOR, spokesman said continued internal investigations into alleged illegal conduct by UN peacekeeping soldiers centered on the Russian battalion assigned to what the force calls Sector East, one of four making up the breakaway Krajina enclave. But he denied a U.S. newspaper report that the force had asked Russia to withdraw the commander of the Russian battalion in the region because of illegal petrol sales to rebel Krajina Serbs.


"There are ongoing investigations into allegations involving a number of separate UNPROFOR peacekeeping units in different contingents," spokesman Paul Risley told a news conference. "For the most part, they involve illegal activities like black marketeering. Many of these investigations have focused on the Russian battalion in Sector East. But the investigations are not complete yet," he said.


The governments of Croatia and Bosnia, both in conflict with separatist Serbs, have repeatedly accused Russian peacekeepers based in Serb-held regions of supplying the Serbs with fuel and other goods from UN stocks.


Russians, who share an Eastern Orthodox heritage with the Serbs, have generally sympathized with them in the conflict.


A wide-ranging initial UN investigation into malfeasance by UNPROFOR personnel completed late last year found evidence of black marketeering, theft and other abuses, although it said serious violations had declined in mid-1993.