The shrinking value of the ruble threatens Russia's economic security by enabling foreigners to buy vital national assets on the cheap, the country's top foreign trade official told an international conference in Moscow Sunday.


"The greatest fears caused by the existing ruble-to-dollar exchange rate concern the possibility of giving into the hands of the foreign proprietors the greatest part of our national property", said Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Shokhin. "These fears are not groundless. The experience of Eastern Europe justifies them".


Western leniency toward Russia's debts would help avoid the necessity to sell off valuable national assets, Shokhin told the two-day conference attended by about 50 top Russian and American political and security experts, including former U. S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.


An economically strong Russia with close ties to former Soviet republics helps world peace and is far preferable to a weak Russia, a top American defense official said.


"We're not afraid of a strong Russia and we're not afraid of strong ties between Russia and its neighbors", said Paul Wolfowitz, a U. S. under secretary of defense. "What we are afraid of is militarism, of attempts to impose decisions on people, because we think that will have very harmful consequences".


Wolfowitz made his remarks after several Russian experts called for a dramatic strengthening of Moscow's economic and political ties with the former Soviet republics.


Nikolai Travkin, a Russian people's deputy and head administrator of Moscow's Shakhovsky region, said that stronger relations were essential for both Russia and the republics.


Single citizenship, a unified military and removal of all customs boundaries between the former Soviet republics were needed to assure Russia's security, he said.


Several American speakers agreed that better relations between republics could serve world peace, provided that Moscow did not seek to impose a new empire on its weaker neighbors.


"It is in our interest, it is in everybody's interest that they use peaceful means", Kissinger told The Moscow Times.


The two-day conference was aimed at increasing American understanding of Russia's national interests. It was sponsored by Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies and co-chaired by Kissinger and Vladimir Lukin, Russia's ambassador to the United States.