When the Commonwealth heads of state meet in Bishkek Friday, one message from Russia will be that it is no longer prepared to wait until the agreed date of 1994 to take over full control of the Soviet nuclear arsenal.


In theory, the issue of control was resolved long ago, with the Commonwealth as a whole to take charge of the Soviet nuclear deterrent until 1994, after which Russia would become the sole nuclear power on the territory of the former Soviet Union.


The interim period, however, is proving too long and too unstable for the Russian side to wait.


The Russian Defense Minister, Pavel Grachev, told Interfax on Wednesday that he planned to make a "serious statement" at Bishkek to the presidents of the four nuclear states of the Commonwealth, namely Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine.


Grachev expressed special concern about nuclear weapons still in Ukraine because they were in limbo, belonging to no state. The consequences of that, he said, were "unpredictable", a four-letter word in the lexicon of nuclear deterrents.


Theoretically, the commander in chief of the Commonwealth forces, Marshall Yevgeny Shaposhnikov, has overall control over the former Soviet arsenal for now. But in an interview with Nezavisimaya Gazeta published Thursday, Shaposhnikov all but acknowledged that this is a fiction.


Shaposhnikov said that after Mikhail Gorbachev handed over his nuclear "briefcase" to Boris Yeltsin in


December 1991, Yeltsin drew up a secret protocol specifying how the nuclear arsenal should be controlled.


"We all work according to this presidential decree", said Shaposhnikov, though he did not specify what was in the decree.


The "briefcase" contains the codes with which Shaposhnikov, Yeltsin and


perhaps Grachev can authorize the nuclear command to launch a strike.


When Nezavisimaya Gazeta pointed out to Shaposhnikov that the actual nuclear controls are inside the Russian Defense Ministry, Shaposhnikov replied: "I have no conflicts with the Ministry of Defense".


That would appear to reinforce the common assumption that de facto control lies with Russia, rather than with the Commonwealth.


In fact, Shaposhnikov said that he was anxious to give up his nuclear briefcase as soon as possible.


"All the nuclear weapons and nuclear power must be Russian, including those on the territory of other independent states", Shaposhnikov told Nezavisimaya Gazeta, echoing Grachev.


Belarus has already handed over its nuclear weapons to Russia, and Kazakhstan is due to sign a new, bilateral, agreement with Russia on Friday.


Grachev said he hoped the issue of control over the weapons in Kazakhstan in the interim period would be solved by the agreement in the same way as was Belarus - by handing over immediately to Moscow.


That would leave Ukraine as the only fly in the ointment from Russia's point of view, and the only country still insisting on a share of control over the weapons remaining on its territory.